Old Glory Is Mended, but Long It Won’t Wave

No job is too big for Flyer Canvas Products, owner Alan Johnson likes to say. That claim by the Huntington Beach company, which makes boat covers and other canvas goods, was tested when it took on a gigantic order: to repair one of the world’s largest U.S. flags.

The banner, 255 feet by 505 feet, is almost three times the area of a football field, far too big to be unfurled at Johnson’s shop. So the work was done inside a blimp hangar at Tustin Marine Corps Helicopter Air Station.

The giant flag, certified by the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s largest in 1994 and 1995, was damaged during the Olympic Torch Relay on May 1 at Hoover Dam in Nevada.

“It flew about one hour, then one cable under the flag broke,” said Thomas “Ski” Demski, the flag’s owner. “Then three more cables snapped.”

The 3,000-pound banner was torn in three places, including one gash 90 feet long.

Under Johnson’s direction, 20 people worked for five hours to make the repairs.

“It wasn’t extremely technical,” Johnson said. “It was just massive to sew something like that back together. . . . It was a novel job.”

Johnson, 51, a certified master fabric craftsman, started in the industry 23 years ago making sails. The only comparable job, he said, was an order to make a backdrop for a rock video.

And that finished product, 60 feet by 320 feet, was far smaller than Demski’s flag.

Demski, 66, a flag collector who lives in Long Beach, said he had trouble finding someone to take on the job of repairing the giant Stars and Stripes, custom-made in 1991. He contacted Johnson, who agreed to do the work.

Now that the flag is fixed and safely stored in Demski’s garage, he has in mind another possibility for immortalizing the banner: getting it listed in the Guinness Book next year as the largest flag ever flown, rather than merely displayed.

But he said he won’t risk unfurling it again if that means that it might be damaged.

The total tab for the repair, he said, including transportation and storage, came to about $5,000.

He might display it next Flag Day, he said this week, but “I’ll never fly it again.”