Recently purchases an AI with an older sail. Already ordered a replacement, but I would like to keep the current one as a backup for when I expand my fleet (3 kayaks strong already!).
The sail itself still maintains a lot of the stiffness in the material, however it has a few holes in the mylar window and one small tear near the head of the sail off to the side of the largest baton. See pictures below.
I have purchased some Life Safe Awning repair tape to repair all of the holes/tears. I understand that the best option for repairing the sail portion is to get the patch kit, however I would like to test the awning repair tape and see how long it holds!
Process I plan to follow:
1. Wash affected areas with water
2. Wipe them down with some mild rubbing alcohol to clean away remaining water contaminants
3. Apply tape to both sides of the sail, covering the holes by more than 1in of tape in all directions
4. Apply additional tape to anywhere that is making a cracking noise when running one finger over it
Below are images of the results. The sail portion did not turn out as well as I hoped due to the fact that the sail is warped. I'll update this post once I have take the kayak out several times. Please let me know your thoughts and questions!