Sailing, Sailing, Sailing, Sailing . . . . . . . .

SHIP'S LOG:

Well, what can I say. It is summer, the weather has been pretty good, and I am living on a sailboat. Sailing obviously is a priority. Blogging, not so much.

To update, the final fix of the ports is done and it even works! we had rain, a real "street cleaner" and the nav station and aft berth remanded dry!

I had planned to go out again on Saturday but, having everything set to go, I unfurled the mainsail, or at least tried to, and it jammed. The old problem of the main bunching up because of the loose furling rod made it almost impossible to move beyond half way out. Evidently, furling it the day before had moved the rod out of position and made the furling a complete and tangled mess. I worked on in for about an hour when I got an assist from Rich Weber. Before any fix could be attempted, the sail had to come all the way out. There was a lot of pulling and sweating and yanking and a little colorful language before we got it all the way out. Then came the fun part, trying to figure what to do. Rich rightly suggested that rather than jury-rig it once again, knowing that it would mess up again sometime in the future, possibly at a most in opportune time, it would be better to fix it and be done with it. Unfortunately, we had no idea just how to go about it.

As luck would have it, Fred, an engineer of great repute, was also available and he likes nothing better than a challenge. Consider that he joined me for the start of the trip south and was "seriously unwell" for a portion of it. (unlike Bob who never does anything half way!)

As I am sure that I mentioned before, the "D"-shaped rob, around which the mainsail furls, fits into a "D" shaped hole in the bottom of the furling unit. The only problem is that it is not fixed in place and keeps lifting out causing all of the problems. Fred, brilliant engineer that he is, decided the best course of action was to drill a hole through the sheave in the bottom of the furling unit right into the furling rod and run a set screw into place to hold the rod down. Seems a simple fix and it was but, as with all things nautical, it took longer to do than one might expect. However, when all was said and done, the fix worked just fine, as subsequent sailing made perfectly clear.

AS to the rest, it has been sailing, sailing and more sailing. I am getting back for all the miles I motored on the ICW. And it has been really wonderful. What can I say. I am enjoying the heck out of it.