Well they would say that...

Zero to Cruising in their quest to get ready for the cruising life has been looking into what would make a good sail repair kit...

One of the folks they spoke with (a sailmaker) gave the opinion that all someone really needed was some sail repair tape and some dental floss. While it might make sense for a day sailor, it does not make a whole lot of sense for someone going cruising. Of course, the dental floss and sail tape repair kit is an excellent thing for sailmakers as it requires those who take that route to use sailmakers for all their repairs. (Now just as a rantish aside, I'd really prefer if folks who made sails were called sailmakers and sadly these days the real sailmakers are all in third world countries and so called lofts are simply the repair and sales arm). Maybe a more apt kit of the sort would be dental floss, sail tape and lots and lots of money!

We have two sewing machines on "So It Goes" and they have both earned the space they take up time and time again. The fact that having lost our rig and sails recently kind of brings that into focus. A new set of sails at the bare minimum (who needs reefs right?) would be over $5000 or so... Being that we are some kinda picky about gear possibly quite a bit more. Having the tools to build a sail on the other hand means for about $2000 we can have exactly what we want and we know it is done right. It's not rocket science and anyone can do it. One book that makes it easy is "The Sailmaker's Apprentice" by Emiliano Marino.

Most of the repairs we have had lofts do over the years have involved longish waits (face it, megayacht cushions are so much more important than sails these days) and when we did get the sails back were needful of re-repair... so why did we bother? Here is an example of what $150 repair gets you when you take your sail in to fix the the UV strip on your jib... The fact that they did not really fix it but simply restitched bits badly  (serious tension and missed stitches seem to be their forte). The area of fraying material which was why we brought it in to be restitched was not dealt with at all and should at the very least have been turned over. A real repair would have  dealt with this.

It's different in your home port where you can have a relationship with your local loft and not doing good work can kill a loft's reputation, but cruising is a whole different story...

That said I'd still bring along the dental floss as clean teeth are happy teeth!