I want to thank Pam Wall And David Smith for their suggestions and to also close this Topic.

Our Port Officer Host in Gaeta, Italy, Jayne Koehler stepped right up to assist and was quickly in contact with John.

She has been going above and beyond in helping John get his sail/rig repaired. From recommendations on a berth for his 55 ' Lagoon to getting him in contact with a good reputable sailmaker in Naples (associated with Banks Sails I believe) she has been indefatigable. Her mastery of the language and her local knowledge have been indispensable in quickly getting John 's issues resolved.

As of the 20th John 's sails were taken to the loft and repairs were underway with needed parts en route.

OCC Port Officers are one of our best OCC membership benefits. We are lucky to have hosts as wonderful as Jayne around the world.

Thanks Jayne and all our volunteers who are their for us when we need them.

Pete

Here are two suggestions from the OCC Facebook page.


Pamela Wall Try writing to: peter@supersailmakers.com in Fort Lauderdale. Peter Grimm is a well known sailmaker and does a lot of work in Europe. Perhaps he knows a good sail loft in Genoa. Pam Wall
Friday at 2:48pm

David Smith Get them to post on YBW.com Liveaboard forum, they should get an answer there as loads of them live in the Med.

Vice Commodore, OCC 

I just received this email from John Carrol aboard a 50+ catamaran en route Messina Strait to Naples:

"Pete,

Once again, I desperately need your help. We were enroute from Mesinna to Naples. During this passage, the local winds, (you call them “Mistrals”???), came from nowhere, and the wind went from a pleasant 25 kts to an unpleasant 50 kts, all in the blink of an eye.

I had given the crew strict instructions that when the boat’s speed approached 10 kts, they were to IMMEDIATELY bleed the wind from the main by easing the traveler, and then to grab me to help reef the main. Instead, they spent their time bringing in the cockpit cushions so they wouldn’t get wet!!!! In about 5 minutes, I heard the sound you never want to hear, and, sure enough, the main was gone.

Fortunately, it wasn’t the mainsail itself that failed; it was the clew outhaul, which ripped completely out of the boom roller furler. However, as soon as that happened, it released the main into 50 kts of wind, which then did some damage to the main.

. Nothing drastic, but I still can’t fly it. If that were the only problem, I am sure that I could hand sew the damage. However, when I bought this boat, one of the first things I noticed was that, in my opinion, Doyle Sails really screwed up. This boom furling system is great; it has an extrusion bolted to the aft of the mast, from tack to masthead. When I want to raise the main, I only need to feed the luff into a guide, and then hit the electric winch, and, theoretically, the main goes up without a hitch. Unfortunately, rather than installing luff tape on the sail, Doyle installed a bolt rope, then covered it with successive layers of sail fabric, which, over the years, has frayed, bulged, deformed, and done everything possible to NOT be round and smooth, making it a royal pain in the ass to raise and lower the sail, when, in fact, it should be so simple. I had already decided long ago to have a modern-day luff tape sewn onto the sail – I just did not expect to have to do it under these circumstances.

I will be in Naples in 2-3 days – we are doing about 6 kts on just our baby jib. What I desperately need from you is for you to reach out to Cruiser’s Forum, your own personal club website, and any one else you can think of who has had actual POSTIVE experience with a specific sail loft in Naples. As you well know Naples is HUGE, and I could spend a week just trying to find a loft, and then I would have no way of knowing if I could trust their work, and if they charge a fair price.

I would do this myself, but my only means of communications is via Sat phone – which is fine for an occasional email like this one, but extremely expensive to start surfing the web, and I mean REALLY expensive.

Would you please send out some feelers for me, and, if you get some good recommendations, keeping in mind that I have limited internet access, that I have never been inside Naples Harbor, and that it is a HUGE place; if you get some recommendations, could you PLEASE Goggle them and give me their approx Lat/Lon, so that I will have some idea which of seven hundred marinas to pull into to get as close as possible to the loft. I suspect that I will be spending most of my time working with the sail maker, as he may not be familiar with in-boom reefing systems, and their specific requirements.

I would really appreciate your help on this one.


Thanks, john"


I 've copied this to our closest cruising station in Gaeta. We haven 't been in the Med since 2006 and would appreciate anyone with local knowledge for Naples please respond with recommendations for John in finding a safe harbor with a good rigger/sailmaker.

Thanks,
Pete