What went wrong this year?

Decatur GA, 21-OCT-2018 – A friend from Oregon told us that the only real shakedown for 3000 mile cruise is a 3000 mile cruise.* Our trip in 2016 proved his point; the list of things that broke ran three pages and almost everything on the list was my own fault.

Two years and 6000 miles later we came home from this year’s trip with no serious issues to report.

  1. 2018 was the year of leaks: there were four minor water leaks, three freshwater, one salt:
Continue reading “What went wrong this year?”

One hour per minute: turning two lines into one

5-FEB-2018, Port Townsend, WA – Premium Ropes has some very good videos on splicing. They are my go-to place for videos.

Last spring, while the mast was down, I replaced all the sheaves in the masthead, cut a new opening for an additional headsail halyard. I also installed a messenger line so that when the halyard was complete I could merely pull it up and through.

The messenger line turned out to be less than a great idea: if I had installed the halyard relatively quickly, let’s say within two months, it would have worked out quite well. Instead, we went sailing across the summer in all kinds of weather. The messenger line jumped out of the sheave and wedged itself between the sheave and the masthead casting. Oh well. Continue reading “One hour per minute: turning two lines into one”