The first hoist is when you find out whether everything fits. Do it on a quiet day, alongside or at anchor, with time to stop and look at things.
Pick the conditions
Light wind, and no schedule. The first hoist is not a sail — it is a fitting exercise that happens to involve raising a sail.
Everything below is easier at five knots and unpleasant at fifteen.
Have to hand
Your Sail Passport. Something to take photographs with. Tape, and something to write on. A knife where relevant. Whatever tool the batten pockets need, if any.
Mainsails
Feed the luff in and check it runs before hoisting fully. Slides and cars should run without being forced. If something binds, stop — a slide that binds now will bind badly under load.
Watch the headboard pass the gate and reach the top without fouling.
Hoist slowly the first time, watching the luff. Stop if anything catches.
Check the tack and clew reach their fittings without the sail being stretched or the fittings being forced.
Set up the reefing lines and take each reef in turn, alongside. This is the most valuable part of the whole exercise: a reef that does not lead properly is discovered here or at two in the morning, and there is a large difference between the two.
Drop it and watch it flake. If it does not fall into the cradle cleanly, that is worth solving now — see Lazy Cradles and Covers.
Headsails
Furling: feed the luff tape into the foil at the feeder, and hoist slowly. It should run without force. Check that the head can rise far enough to tension the luff before it reaches the swivel — if it cannot, stop and tell us.
Roll the sail away and unroll it fully, twice. Check the UV strip finishes on the outside. If it does not, the sail is on the wrong way round or the strip is on the wrong side, and it needs sorting before the sail is used.
Hanked: clip on from the bottom, and check the hanks close properly on the stay and run freely.
Then check the sheet leads. Set the sail, sheet it in, and look at where the car is. A car at the end of its track with a new sail is a problem to solve now.
Flying sails
Set it in very light wind, the first time, in open water.
Check the tack reaches, the halyard is long enough and exits clear of the forestay, and the sheets lead somewhere sensible and are long enough to go round the front on a gybe.
Then practise getting it down. Sock, furler or drop — do it two or three times when it does not matter. The first douse is where a system either works or does not, and doing it for the first time in a rising breeze is how sails get damaged and people get hurt.
On a top-down furler, check the sail rolls evenly from the head. If it bunches, the luff is probably not tensioned enough.
Things that mean stop
A slide or luff tape that binds. Forcing it damages the sail, the track or both.
The head reaching the top before the luff is tensioned.
A fitting that will not reach, or only reaches with the sail under tension.
A UV cover on the inside of the roll.
Anything that has to be forced.
Stop, photograph it, and ask. None of these gets better with use.
After the first hoist
Look over the sail with it up: at the leech, at the corners, at where it touches the rig when eased. Mark or note anything that touches — that is where protection will be needed, and it is information for the next sail as well as this one.
Photograph the fitted sail and any contact points worth recording. Add the useful photographs and notes to its Sail Passport in My Sails.
Then drop it, stow it, and go sailing another day.
Things that will settle
New cloth is stiff and noisy, and softens. Fold creases fall out. A new mainsail may need its luff tension adjusted over the first few outings as the cloth settles.
None of these is a fault. What is a fault is something that does not fit, and that shows up on the first hoist rather than gradually.
If something does not fit, do not force or alter it. Photograph the whole installation and the problem, then email crew@surgesails.com with the order number or sail label.