I chose to work as a sailmaker for when I’m not at sea in large part because it looked more appealing than boatbuilding, as one could stay clean and listen to music while fabricating beautiful shapes. Non of this holds true for sail repairs at sea however, a decidedly challenging affair!
Firstly, one needs to clean and dry the cloth, no small task in and of itself inside a boat. Then carefully “stitch” the edges to align the tear in preparation for the repair tape to come later. This is a delicate task, as the tortured tendrils need to be meshed together so as to have each side under equal load when the sail is flying again. To do this, I ended up spread eagled over the engine box (while the engine is running, to provide heat to help the adhesive), using my chin to pin down one edge of the seam, while using two hands to tension and align the rip, while using two more hands to tape down the stitch! Rolling down the repair tape is equally elegant.
So far I have repaired the structural zones in the tack and clew, the rip along the foot, now all the remains is to rebuild the entire luff area. Should have it up in a jiffy!

making repairs on the big kite!