Cool Beans

Since I was out flogging the jet late last week Deb beat me to the lake by a couple of days. By the time I slogged in Friday evening she had cleaned the decks of both Nomad and Kintala, then (on the big boat) installed new LED lights in the salon, re-installed the Bimini, squared away some of the mast rigging, had the water system actually working, and discovered a leaking anti-siphon valve. (She seems inordinately fond of the foot pump for the galley sink!)

Cool beans.

Saturday morning I decided to ignore the fact I had no idea how to get Kintala under control. Instead I just went to the first job listed in the manual for setting up the mast, a procedure called "chocking". Now I didn't really have a clue what that was, but pretended to know what needed done anyway. Joel and Jeff stepped in to help and before long the mast was sitting tight in the cabin top; no fuss, no muss.

Cool beans X 2.

With the mast secured in the deck we replaced the trashed inner fore stay halyard with the only good bit of running rigging we had, and with that there was a way to get up to the lower spreaders. Joel called Kacey and by the end of the day I was swinging in the Boson's chair putting the final tension on the diamond stays. Kintala's mast was secured.

Cool beans X 4.

Saturday evening the assembled decided on an "End of the world" bash. In case you hadn't heard Harold Camping had claimed May 21 as the day god was going to call it quits on the world, (24 hour news channels have to fill air-time somehow). Our marina is nothing if not equal opportunity and the rantings of the clearly demented are as good an excuse for a party as any. Actually, had god showed up he (or she) would have had a rocking good time; long before midnight the quips and jokes were flying so fast and so furious that several of the assembled were reduced to tears - we were laughing that hard.

This morning Dennis, owner of the marina, allowed as he had a plan for getting to the very tippy-top of Kintala's 60 foot mast and rigging a way to install the new halyards when they arrive. He wasn't kidding. After an hour or so aloft he had installed a veritable highway of block and tackle that will get me all the way up to the sheaves on a easy Boson's chair ride. I'm not exactly sure how he managed to get from the lower spreaders to the top of the mast without a halyard - some kind of magic trick with foot loops and one-way knots. It worked though, and on the way down he cleared the mast of the tangle of rigging we used to step the mast in the first place. (Joel, Kacey, Jeff and Thorston were all part of the effort as well.)

Cool Beans X 8.

With the mast straight and true and shed of extraneous rigging, there seemed no reason that the Tides Marine Sail Track system should stay in its box. The first attempt at slidding the track up the mast hit a snag, literally. Jeff loaned me his Dremmel which made quick work of grinding smooth the sharp bit of metal that was digging into the backside of the track and stopping progress. With Thorston adding to the grunt, the track went up the mast with less effort than I would have guessed.

Cool Beans X 16.

Mast and track installed, why not get the boom off the deck? With Bill holding the aft end Thorston helped me secured the pin and rig the topping lift. All the heavy metal was up in the air!

Cool Beans X 32.

This time last week I was feeling a bit overwhelmed, Kintala was essentially a collection of problems, some of which I had no real clue of how to tackle. But the endless, selfless help of friends lead to an exponential rise in the Cool Beans. There is still a long list of things that need fixed, oiled, tweaked, figured out and understood, but Kintala is a sailboat now, not just a project. She is also a testament to the community of sailors that make up our marina. Without them (and Deb) I would still be standing on the foredeck, limp halyard in hand, wondering what to do next.