I have done messed up. I am re-skinning my kayak for the summer rush, and I got to the part where you cut off the excess fabric. I laid a 1-1/4" flat strip down the length of the kayak, and proceeded to pull the skin across and cut along the side of the batten away from the gunwale the skin wrapped. At least I [i]think[/i] I did. I've skinned kayaks at least 10 times now, this is how I always do it. Then I put in my zig-zag lacing, tightened it all up, and went back to start my running stitch to pull the skin together. I got about 2 feet from the stern tip, working towards the cockpit, and realized I was quickly running out of skin to pull together. Finished that run of thread, and checked it out. Further towards the cockpit (further means about 3' from the stern) I can't even pull the nylon to touch, let alone overlap an inch or so. Now, I picked today to start the skinning because it's been rainy all morning, and kinda cool. I sprayed the skin down and got it good and wet prior to the zig-zag. By the time I got back to the running stitch, I had to spray it again, it was starting to dry.

One, is it possible that during drying out from the initial wetting, the skin shrank up that 1-1/4" gap?

Two, maybe I was thinking about Kurt's machine guns and actually cut the second flap of skin on the wrong side of the batten. I suppose that's possible. So if I have a permanent gap, what is the procedure for installing a long v-shaped patch? Stitching wise. I can't be the first idiot to have done this... not that anyone else who's done it is an idiot... if you have the answer to my little dilemma, that makes you a genius! : )

My inclination is to get it good and sopping wet, and run a second zig-zag closer to the would-be seam and try my level best to get them to at least touch. Maybe then I can steal enough extra with a whipping or x-stitching to bunch together some semblance of a closed seam, or at least shorten the patches.

Thoughts, and possibly encouragement, would be appreciated. Ordering another skin is kind of out of the question at this point, but I have a pile of big scraps from the last three kayaks.

Is there some kinda magic tape I can overlay on the seam? I could stitch it as tight as possible and spread a load of 5200 down it maybe...