How to Cut the Bolt Rope Free on an Old Mainsail

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When we bought our MacGregor 26S, the bolt rope had already shrunk on the mainsail. This caused the sail to not extend all the way, creating an extra draft in the sail (bagginess). I had read online about cutting the bolt rope free to fix this, but couldn't find any videos. Taking a knife to your mainsail is a little unnerving! We hope this video helps anyone else considering doing it to visually understand the process, and why you might need to do this.
The results are amazing.. it's like sailing a whole new boat! We also installed slugs at the same time (video link: • What are Sail Slugs an... ) so the mainsail raises and douses super easy, and now she raises all the way to the top and has much better sail shape. Immediately after installing these, we took her out. A storm had just passed by, and the wind was changing on us. The wind increased to forming whitecaps as we were leaving the marina, and normally when we see whitecaps we start to reef. This time, however, with the better sail shape, we felt complete confidence and never needed to reef. She seems to point better, and sail better all around.
I wish I had done this sooner. 30 minutes and no money... how can it get any better than that?!
Sail on!!

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Опубликовано:

26 авг 2024

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Комментарии : 5

@RomanBershadsky 4 года назад

Bolt rope is there for a reason: taking the stretching force and preserving sail integrity. Cutting it improves old sail shape, but now all the force is taken by the sail itself and its stitching. It will stretch much faster and may even rip at the seams. What I've done (have the same sail on 1989 26D) is cut it, then stretched the sail on the ground manually, so the rope moved inside by about 2 inches (that's the average amount of old sail stretching from what I gathered in the forums) and then stiched it back with a dental floss - it's similar in strength and thickness to what sail makers use. I've done the same to the luff bolt rope. Now that you stretehced it and sailed that way, consider stitching it back at the new spot. That way it will retain most of its function and prevent the sail from degrading fast. Direction of wrinkles can tell you if the bolt rope is too tight or not. If wrinkles are perpendicular to the rope, it needs to be losened, if they start to form in parallel as you tighten the halyard, it means the rope is getting too lose and not holding the sail together. Ideally there should be no wrinkles at all, but on an older sail it's difficult. Not sure I nailed it exactly right, but the sail shape seems to be better now.

@headoverheelssailing8962 4 года назад

Great insight. Thank you for sharing!!

@jamesbrooks9828 Год назад

How far apart do you install the plugs

@paulheitkemper1559 4 года назад

There's a bolt rope in the foot as well. It also looks a little shrunken.

@headoverheelssailing8962 4 года назад

Thanks for this great tip, too, Paul! That's a simple observation that I completely missed. I'll take a look at it the next time I'm at the boat. Cutting the bolt rope on the luff has yielded amazing results. I shouldn't need to put slides on the foot, as loose-footed is popular anyways, right? Just one small area will be "loose"? Thanks again for the tips!