Recutting a Sail's Leech & Foot Edge

After years of use on the water, a sail’s leech can stretch out. This can also be an issue if the sail was converted from a hanked on system to a roller furling system, as is the case with the sail in our how-to video. When we took the boat for a test sail, we found that the sail fluttered terribly — it was too stretched out. We also found that the foot had too much round and interfered with the roller furling drum.

Cutting the leech and foot to allow for more hollow might also include tightening up some seams to help support the edges. We found this to be true with the sail we’re working on, which belongs to Sailrite^® founder Jim Grant and his Islander 37 sailboat. Follow along with us as we work on this genoa sail. We’ll walk you through all the steps involved so you can recut your own leech and foot on your sail with accuracy, efficiency and a great end result.

After you've completed this sail project, be sure to watch our follow-up video “How to Reinstall a Sail’s Corner Ring Video” (200686XHT). In that video, you'll learn how to reinstall the corner ring that was cut from this sail when trimming the leech and foot edges. In that video, we’ll show you how to resew the corner ring on the sail using Dyneema webbing and the Sailrite^® Ultrafeed^® LSZ Walking Foot Sewing Machine.