Since yesterday was a play day today was scheduled to be a work day. (Last week's parts finally arrived.) That was before last night's cold front brought perfect temperatures and stiff winds flowing out of the north. A steady parade of sailboats filed out of the marina to hoist sails and go screaming across a rumbled up lake...Kintala among them.
As good fortune would have it a host of friends joined us. Once out on the lake Kintala's acting Captain (that would be me) decided that she could easily handle having the full main and reacher deployed in the forecast 10 kts worth of wind. And I'm sure she could have. 20+ worth? That was a bit more exciting. We went honking off across the lake like a boat possessed, nearly dragging a rail, spray flying over the deck, and me wrestling with a massive amount of weather helm. Who knew being so seriously over-canvased could be so much fun? But eventually the helm ran completely against the stop. Kintala didn't round up, didn't bite, didn't even bark very loud. She was laboring to do what I asked, but I was clearly pushing the edge way too hard. The good fortune? Several of the friends on board were serious, accomplished, life long sailors. With their help we managed to douse a good bit of the head sail and get a reef in the main - all without resorting to starting the motor or hurting anything or anyone. It took a good effort by all on board and we spent the rest of the day blasting around the lake under much better control.
So the to-do list is no shorter. In fact we added a bit to it with the topping lift failing half-way though the day. It popped when one of the crew inadvertently grabbed the end of the boom on a stumble; which is much better timing than having it let go when dropping the sail, and thus dropping the boom on some body's head. Here's a surprise, the plastic covered 1/8 cable appears to be badly corroded at the point of failure. Who decided that plastic covered cable was a good idea? In any case we had rigged an extra main halyard during the halyard disaster of a couple of months ago so we pressed it into service as a temporary topping lift.
We break 'em. We fix 'em. We break 'em again.
2 comments:
Leave those "to-do's" for a boring day in paradise anchored in somewhere Cay. Keep her working, but use her, Kintala appreciates it.
We still have some items that need done before we can head for "a boring day in paradise", but we are getting there. The pace of adding items to the list seems to be slowing, that is a good sign. And you are right, all machines work better when they are worked, Kintala is no exception.
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