Let the sewing projects begin!

When we started cruising we were advised that most boats “out there” had a sewing machine and it would be easy to pay someone to borrow theirs if you needed to do a repair.

Apparently, everyone else got the same advice and didn’t buy one because we didn’t find that to be true. Plus, if you own an expensive delicate machine, would YOU loan it out to someone who wanted to take it for a dinghy ride? I don’t think so.

And we needed one. We thought sewing machines were expensive until we found out how much it was going to cost to restitch the sunbrella on our jib in Tahiti – OUCH! Some really nice friends helped us sew up our sunbrella once but otherwise we have had to pay professionals.

This cyclone season, we were lucky enough to band together with a bunch of other cruisers on a container coming to Fiji, under the guidance of someone who had negotiated shipping to Fiji and customs clearances before. And so, as part of our order of heavy goods, we ordered a Sailrite LSZ-1 PLUS.

In the few weeks we’ve had the machine, I’ve resewn the suncovering on our genoa, restitched some bits on our main, our aging mainsail cover, dodger, bimini and connector panel.

Already the machine has paid for itself and we have some big projects in mind for the future including (after almost 5 years of cruising) proper cockpit cushions!