laser sail mast pocket open at top?

I have an old laser sail from a craigslist find. its in very good shape, as it has been in a bag inside an AC garage since the 90's.

what is confusing to me is that at the top of the mast pocket, it is open. sewn into a loop onto the very top of the head is a 7-8 inch long piece of webbing and it had an old piece of rope tied onto that.

how do I rig this? there is nothing on the top of my mast to tie this to, just a standard mast plug... Can I just have a sail repair shop sew the end up? all the laser sails Ive seen have been closed at the top.

obviously this boat is not raced.

Sounds like an old Radial or M sail, which were used with a halyard.

Does the head look like this? http://sailingforums.com/attachments/top-fixing-ring-jpg.2508/

If that is the case, I guess you could change it to the standard configuration, but the new webbing should be longer than on the newer sails as the luff is shorter. How long is the luff of that sail?

Pictures of the head, as well as the whole sail would help.

Yep, looks like that.

Anywhere I can find that only part? Or a way to ghetto rig it? I have a standard sail too...but I like the colors of the vintage kit...

Wow! bit of serious history here, I knew that the M and the radial had halyard originally but have never seen a picture.

As it is so simple and if you are nor racing I'd screw a fairlead to the top of the mast, only a few pence to do and dead easy. If I were doing it I'd run the halyard down the inside of the luff sleeve so it wouldn't go too slack when the mast bends, tricky though, otherwise a little clam cleat on the mast head like the RS Fevas have.

Without a zipper in the luff, the halyard makes very little sense. You still have to rig and unrig it basically the same way as all Lasers; the only difference is that you can sort-of lower the sail temporarily without taking the mast down. It must look awful stuffed against the boom and gooseneck, though.

As Riv said, screw a small fairlead to the top of the mast. Then just tie the sail to it with a short piece of rope.

(Btw, this must be the first time I'm giving illegal advice... but the obviously zero availability of an original cap fitting [as in the picture] makes this an equally obvious exception.)

I think I'm just going to buy a standard mast and find a used or practice sail. Maybe even one of the "power head" sails. The boat is just for dinking around in the river and scaring my young family members with. I used to race a decade+ ago, but have no real interest in attempting to pick racing back up at 28 yrs old, with a 30 year old boat that I got in a trade for a trolling motor and a fishing reel lol