The Monday Sail

When Sailrite began building sails once again (rather than selling just kits for home assembly), we ordered two jibs for our brand-new roller furler. These sails were excellent in every way . . . except for one minor detail in the smaller one.

That sail, a 115 percent, was delivered with windows and telltales as requested, but it appeared to have reached its final assembly on a Friday or a Monday . . . because the green telltales were on the port side and the red to starboard. We hear tales of automobiles and other products assembled just after a worker’s weekend festivities or in anticipation of them with some attention to detail lacking.

A telltale is a simple thing

Another friend, a sailmaker, has told us time and time again that the color of telltale should not matter. Any leftover spinnaker cloth should do no matter whether it’s teal, orange, or purple. We agree in principle. But if the telltales are red and green shouldn’t they be located on the appropriate side?

We joked about the reversed telltales last year during the first season with our new furler and we got used to their idiosyncrasies. Besides, we used the larger jib (a 155 percent) for most of that year’s cruise.

Jerry makes a minor adjustment: red on the port side!

This year, we’d forgotten all about the reversed telltales and got the giggles all over again when flying that sail. Then we spread it out on a yacht club lawn and put our own replacements on. Once we had the sail spread out flat we realized how easy it would be to confuse the sides of the sail and accidentally reverse the telltales. It was a simple mistake to make and a simple mistake to fix.

In every other way this jib was perfect as delivered. And now that we have the green telltales to starboard and red ones to port, it’s absolutely perfect, even if it was — perhaps — a Monday sail.

Karen does her part too