The sails came with the boat, and for a few years they were "good enough". Then, little by little, everything around them changed: winches, a bimini, a sail pack, a new mainsail with four reefs, and a boom full of blocks and winches. Plus one hard dodger that never made it home.
Laundry day
In May 2022 I took all the sails out and looked at them properly. The genoa had been living on the furler. It was clean and in good shape; only a few stitches on the UV cover needed redoing, plus new telltales. The main was dirty but working. It had lots of tears along the folds, about 20 spots patched with sail repair tape, and only one reef point. Then there was a spare genoa: dirty where it had been exposed, with the luff rope missing and a luff pocket that needs redoing, but otherwise not bad. Maybe a sail loft can bring it back someday.
Then came laundry day. Two cups of OxiClean in about 300 liters of water, a 24-hour soak, and dry. The genoa is big. I mean really big. Folding it alone is a workout.
Winches
Just for history, here are the original main winches. Lewmar 25, I think.
In June 2024 I put Barton self-tailers on the main winches. The same day I put back the engine room vent duct, put a 3D-printed cover on the Horizon VHF, tied down boxes in the V-berth, and dry-fit the bow roller and the windlass base. Then I went sailing for four hours. A perfect day.
Another winch had problems: the small one for the centerboard line. In November 2022, when I took it and its backing plate off, I saw that somebody had made Swiss cheese there. From the top I drilled out and cleaned all the holes, filled them with thickened epoxy and glassed over them with three layers of 8 oz cloth. From below I cut the skin open. Only three squares of the plywood core were wet, which surprised me. I dried it, fitted new teak plywood blocks between the skins, filled everything with thickened epoxy, put the original skin back and glassed it with three layers. Somebody will say that's not enough, but this winch only lifts the centerboard, with almost no load. Originally it was held with wood screws, and the backing plate did nothing. Now it has through-bolts with nuts.
Bimini
In May 2023 my bimini got a nice new skin. I sewed it, tried it and installed it. But once it was all assembled, I found something interesting: the mounts the previous owner had put in sit exactly where the bimini gets in the way of the winches and the jib sheet cleats. So I had to take it apart again and move it back 10–15 inches. Then it touches the furler cleat a little, but that's easy to fix.
A week later I moved the bimini about 15 inches aft and glassed the old holes. Now it's out of the way of the winches and lines. No pictures, sorry.
A sail pack
In the summer of 2025 I sewed a sail pack with lazy jacks. July was the dry fit. I was sick that day, so I only did about an hour of work. It fits very well. It's a bit big at the front, but since I was planning a new main anyway, better bigger than smaller. Left to do: cheek blocks and a cleat on the mast, an eye for the front top corner, and the zipper line.
A week later it was done: the cheek block on the mast, and all lines adjusted.
After the sail pack I had about 17 feet of Sunbrella left over. Too good to waste, so I made new cockpit cushions out of it. From idea to done didn't take long.
After the trip to Kemah and the boatyard, in March 2026, the main and the sail pack went back on, and the lazy jacks went back up to the mast.
In April 2026 I spliced the sail pack lines instead of tying knots, because the tails kept jamming in the zipper.
The hard dodger that flew away
September 2025. I wanted a hard dodger: fiberglass, real glass in front, polycarbonate sides. This boat isn't symmetrical, and nothing on it is square; I've learned that many times. So to build the dodger at home, I needed a full-size 3D template.
I've made lots of templates during this rebuild. My way is 1-inch strips of 5 mm plywood and hot glue. I started from the center line: a rope pulled tight from the mast to the backstay, just under the boom, which is also the highest the dodger can go. I covered the deck with masking tape, so I could hot-glue straight to it, and laid down strips for the footprint.
I set the windshield angle to follow the mainsheet line. On the Irwin 34 the companionway is shifted to port, so the flat front of the dodger ended up off-center. The long horizontal plank is the roof height, and the one closer to the camera is the roof length.
Four long hours under the Texas sun, and the whole thing was built, with about 4 inches of clearance under the boom.
I took it off, carried it carefully to the truck and tied it down. It was really fragile, so I planned to take side roads at under 40 mph.
And then, about five miles from home, I forgot. I saw a 60 sign, thought "why am I driving so slow?", and pressed the gas a little. At about 55 I realized my template had come loose, snapped around the tie-down and flown off. One second later a car ran it over and made a nice pile of plywood sticks out of my four hours of work.
All I could do was pick up the trash from the road. The dodger is still on the wish list. The template is in a landfill.
A new mainsail with four reefs
In April 2026 I took the main measurements to order a new sail. The old one had hundreds of pinholes and was stretched a lot.
After a lot of thinking, I went with Far East Sails to design and build the new main. I did the measurements myself on the boat and hoped I hadn't made a big mistake I'd regret. What I changed:
- 4 reefs. Yes, four. Maybe I'll never use the fourth in my life, but better to have it.
- Luff 1.2 inches shorter than spec.
- Leech set so the relaxed boom sits 5 inches higher than horizontal, to leave room for a dodger.
- Foot 3 inches shorter, for a pair of outhaul blocks. I want better control of the shape. Maybe I'm wrong, but it's my call.
- Cloth: Challenge Fastnet 7.88, modern and UV-stable.
Four weeks after the deposit and a few emails, they said the sail was almost ready to ship.
June 2026: me and my new sail.
Isn't it nice? The shape fit very well. But the slides that came on it were 16 mm, and my mast track needs 19 mm. That was a real problem: the sail just wouldn't work on my mast. I contacted Far East Sails, and to their credit, they answered fast. They asked me to get a quote from a local loft and said they'd pay for the change.
To be fair, part of it is on me. I checked every dimension and spec before ordering, but I never thought to check what slides they'd put on. I assumed they'd match the boat info. Mistakes happen. What matters is how a company handles them, and so far Far East has been professional.
One more thing: the sail rubs on the outhaul track opening in the boom. That's my boom setup, not the sail, so I need to fix it before it wears through.
An outhaul you can actually adjust
The original boom end was a total disaster. The clew end of the boom had just a hook: the outhaul went from the clew to the hook, then to a block, then back to a horn cleat at the end of the boom. How am I supposed to adjust that underway? There was no way to put real tension on the outhaul, especially in wind. The topping lift line was strange too.
With the new sail I want to adjust the foot underway, so in July 2026 I built a 4:1 purchase for the outhaul. It's temporary. The plan is to rearrange the whole boom for 4 reefs (instead of the one I had), the outhaul and the topping lift: blocks inside the boom at the end, lines out the sides. Starboard gets reefs 1 and 3, a #10 winch and a horn cleat. Port gets reefs 2 and 4, a #10 winch and a horn cleat. Maybe a V-cleat on each line before the winch, so the winch can be freed.
Reef blocks, winches and some math
With four reefs, I wanted to know what loads I'm really dealing with, and the numbers surprised me. At the fourth reef there's still about 4.9 m² of sail out. In a worst-case 60 knots, that's about 3.7 kN. If 40% of it goes to the reef clew, that's 1.5 kN. The two legs of the reef line pull at a shallow angle, about 10°, so each leg carries about 4.3 kN. Add 50% for gusts, flogging and shock, and you're at 6.4 kN. So I need blocks rated around 8 kN. And every reef works out about the same:
- Full sail: luff 11.14 m, 25.6 m²
- Reef 1: 19.2 m² (75%), up to 20 kn, peak line tension 2.8 kN
- Reef 2: 13.6 m² (53%), up to 30 kn, peak 4.45 kN
- Reef 3: 8.8 m² (34%), up to 40 kn, peak 5.13 kN
- Reef 4: 4.9 m² (19%), up to 60 kn, peak 6.43 kN
6 kN is about 1,350 lb. No way you pull that by hand, so I need winches on the boom. But a winch shouldn't be able to overload the lines either. A #10 winch with a strong person cranking 70 lb at 10:1 gives 700 lb. Good.
Next problem: the boom is curved. I made spacers from 3D-printed ASA, 100% infill, shaped to the boom. With about 2,400 mm² of support, even 12 kN of screw clamping is only about 5 MPa, easy for ASA, and the plastic gives a little and fits the boom better. Inside the boom, a full backing plate ties all four M5 screws together, so nothing dents or cracks around the screws.
In short: the blocks and winches go on the boom with 3D-printed spacers that follow its curve and spread the load. On paper ASA is good enough. The catch is that I'll need to retighten the screws several times after installing.
The block spacers are flat on the outside face and follow the boom on the other. They're asymmetric, so one block sits 10 mm above the boom's centerline and the other 10 mm below, and the reef lines closer to the boom end run free without touching the other block. Inside the boom, another spacer keeps the backing plate parallel to the block. Those backing plates are 3 mm 304 stainless with tapered holes, plus a center hole for a screw that holds the plate on the spacer.
For the winches: the outside spacers, and inside, 5 mm stainless backing plates held in place by small screws.
How do you install a backing plate inside a closed boom? Put the outside spacer on and use it as a drill template. Hot-glue the backing plate to a wooden slat and push it in, then run a thin steel wire through to pull the plate close enough to line up the screw holes. Once they line up, drill a small hole through the aluminum only, at the center, countersink it, and put in a small screw to keep the plate in place. Tef-Gel on the screws and holes, and install the block. Doesn't it look nice?
Then came the two winches, with backing plates done the same way. Dry fit first, then the winch in place. Four reefs, two winches, and a boom that finally works for me, not against me.