Heavily damaged Naish repaired

This kite was sent to us by one of our supporting shops, Jupiter Kiteboarding in Florida here. I was flattered that they didn't even call ahead to see if this kite was fixable, even as extensive as it was. I guess that after years of them sending us seriously damaged kites they just assume we can fix it no matter what.

Above, you can see that there are two struts that are completely separated from the canopy, and that the canopy is ripped all the way up one strut, across the leading edge and over to the next strut, and half way down. Below you can see that we have put the canopy back together as the first step, but this is prior to adding the patch cloth. The two white lines are the factory reinforcement for the strut-to-canopy seam.

With the struts already separated from the canopy by the accident, it was slightly easier for us to put the sail back together. We also had to sew the trailing edge reinforcement line back in to the hem which had ripped out all the way across the kite. This can be tricky because as the needle of the sewing machine pierces the line the braid of the line is spread apart - this shortens the overall length.

Finally, with the struts sewn back in place, the kite is checked for shape. Actually, we did this just for the photo. We knew the shape was perfect because we saw every fiber line up as we repaired it.

The final shape check shows that this once-shredded kite is now repaired and back in perfect flying condition.