(Note; blog time is a few days behind real time, mostly due to Island time. It turns out all those claims about about a small interconnected world are advertising hokum. Even with a Bahamian sim card and the constant promise of WiFi – which we keep paying for only to discover that, "It isn't working today Mon," - our communications capability with anyone beyond shouting distance is woefully inadequate. Deb has a bunch of pictures she would love to share, but we will have to figure out where the real Internet is hiding before she can do that.)
What a weird day. It was an easy sail from Treasure Cay to Marsh Harbour, but I couldn't make anything work right. We were leaning nearly straight into a 10 knot east wind, +/- 10 to 15 knots. The wind would fade to near nothing then gust to 20 knots. That is right on the edge of where Kintala, with full main, jib, and staysail, is flying too much canvas. Less though, and she would wallow in the light air and 2 foot waves. So I worked the sails like a demented deck monkey while trying to find a sail set that worked. (We tacked the whole rig 6 times today in an 18 mile sail.) About the only thing I did figure out is that the staysail and a furled / rolled in jib do not play well together. Fly it all or put one of them away.
In the process of climbing that bit of learning curve a flogging sheet somehow snaked under the dinghy, (mounted with the pointy tail-tube bits straddling our mast) snagged the starboard side forward Dorad, and ripped it right off of its box. Later that same sheet grabbed the boat hook, mounted as usual to the starboard side stanchions, ripped those mounts loose, and nearly skewed the deck monkey with it.
Slap me silly. An easy sail and somehow I managed to dismantle chunks of the boat.
We got here though, and putting things back together only took a hour or so. We will probably be a few days waiting out a parade of low pressure systems, so I am going to try and get my foredeck better organized. Out here Murphy sits at the right hand of King Neptune, ensuring that every potential niggle exposes the foolish to the King's displeasure.
We suspected as much, which is why we work so hard at being the two most conservative "newbies" out here this year. Still, just about the time I was starting to hope I was getting better at this, we get a day that makes me think I should have taken up knitting instead. Though today I would have probably knitted my shoe laces together and fallen down the steps. (A good trick that, since I rarely wear shoes anymore and when I do, they don't have laces.)
What a weird day. It was an easy sail from Treasure Cay to Marsh Harbour, but I couldn't make anything work right. We were leaning nearly straight into a 10 knot east wind, +/- 10 to 15 knots. The wind would fade to near nothing then gust to 20 knots. That is right on the edge of where Kintala, with full main, jib, and staysail, is flying too much canvas. Less though, and she would wallow in the light air and 2 foot waves. So I worked the sails like a demented deck monkey while trying to find a sail set that worked. (We tacked the whole rig 6 times today in an 18 mile sail.) About the only thing I did figure out is that the staysail and a furled / rolled in jib do not play well together. Fly it all or put one of them away.
In the process of climbing that bit of learning curve a flogging sheet somehow snaked under the dinghy, (mounted with the pointy tail-tube bits straddling our mast) snagged the starboard side forward Dorad, and ripped it right off of its box. Later that same sheet grabbed the boat hook, mounted as usual to the starboard side stanchions, ripped those mounts loose, and nearly skewed the deck monkey with it.
Slap me silly. An easy sail and somehow I managed to dismantle chunks of the boat.
We got here though, and putting things back together only took a hour or so. We will probably be a few days waiting out a parade of low pressure systems, so I am going to try and get my foredeck better organized. Out here Murphy sits at the right hand of King Neptune, ensuring that every potential niggle exposes the foolish to the King's displeasure.
We suspected as much, which is why we work so hard at being the two most conservative "newbies" out here this year. Still, just about the time I was starting to hope I was getting better at this, we get a day that makes me think I should have taken up knitting instead. Though today I would have probably knitted my shoe laces together and fallen down the steps. (A good trick that, since I rarely wear shoes anymore and when I do, they don't have laces.)
1 comment:
I had to laugh about the dorade ripping out. We've done the same thing A LOT. We finally tethered them to their bases with a 3 foot length of paracord hidden inside.
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