Star went for her last sail for 2012 on Sunday December 2nd. A great ending to a great year for Star.
We sailed every month of the year thanks to Sue.
Now it was time to fix the broken stuff(can't do it during sailing season!), and make all the improvements that one dreams about while sailing. "Ya know if I just did this...."
The list would include a "new" traveler, rebuilt from one the yard had after chainsawing up a 34 footer. How is possible that no one wanted that boat?
The genoa is rotten along the out edge, which I fixed but for some reason still looks horrible. I'm either going to turn it into a Yankee, or a jib with the exact same dimensions as the blade jib I built and set both up on the head stay for running down wind with poles. Everyone knows that's the proper setup when in the South Pacific Trades!
A new removable stay set in between the windlass and the headstay, for a small storm jib I have. This will take the pressure off headstay, and jib when it's really blowing and the boat wants to shake itself to death in the gusts. You need something up forward to to help the boat stay head to wind on even tacking in a lot breeze. Just the main alone especially when reefed doesn't work.
Along with the new stay there will be a set of shrouds coming from the same connection point for the staysail stay at the mast down to the rail aft of the spreaders but not so far aft as to interfere with sailing downwind. I never have the main against the rig when downwind - I put too much time into that main to have it wear out on the spreaders etc.
The forward hatch's hold down was busted and the isn't any weatherstripping so I came up with a hold down that actually bolts the hatch down against a strip of closed cell gasket material that should
keep it water tight. Everyone knows how important it is to have sealed hatches when crossing oceans!
The cockpit locker needs the same business, since if the cockpit were to fill that's a huge opening to the innards of the boat. Can't have to much on the outside because its we're we stand and sit. Any kind of fittings will rip into you if the boat took a wave and the crew got thrown against them. What to do, What to do?
The wind vane self-steering will get a new blade for the oar part. The original was just for an experiment and ended up working great. It just goes to show how rough these things can be and still work. The new one will be fiberglass with a strip of stainless welded the the shaft inside the glass foil to make it strong. I will carry the old for back up. I also need to figure out a new counterweight system so I don't have to break down the Bimini each time.
