New blocks, and stuff

Thursday I went for a sail. The wind was steady, at about 8 knots. Just enough to move along nicely. I thought I'd gone pretty far out, but the Navionics track looks pretty small. Distances are huge around here.

It was a nice, sunny afternoon, but since it was late (4-6pm), the wind was cold. There was a lot of activity. A cruise ship came in (big waves for such a slow-looking vessel!), the Coho came in, a tug towing a cement barge came in, many seaplanes and helicopters took off and landed, and there were a couple of sailboats and motorboats out, as well as a navy ship.

Yesterday, Friday, was possibly a better day for sailing, with a slightly stronger wind, and I was going to go out—even rigged up completely—but decided to do some stuff on the boat that I'd been wanting to get to.

One thing I did was to add another plastic donut to each jib lead, so the sheets can flow through more easily.

Not the best view; right at the bottom of the photo.

The mainsheet blocks had started to fall apart a few weeks ago, so I took them apart and glued them up. But then one inverted on Thursday—I guess I didn't get the tension right on the rope that held it to the boom. I had found three decent sheaves at the maritime flea market, so yesterday I brought them out and replaced the old woodies with them.

I want to have NO failures at sea! One malfunctioning block can mean a dunking, which in turn can mean more than just a dunking.

I made these photos higher resolution so the details can be seen better.

I also replaced the wooden mainsheet cam cleat with a metal and fibre one (no pic yet).

I just took the old wood cams (above) off and stuck the new assembly below that U-bolt, so now the sheet goes through two U's. I found that the woodies weren't always getting a solid grip. I kept the pieces so that I could revert if need be.

The lines leading to the cleats in the photo above are: port cleat, jib halyard + jib downhaul; stbd cleat, main halyard + main downhaul; centre cleat, topping lift. I don't know where I'd tie off the lines necessary for a gaff yard!

Here's what the daggerboard looks like, underwater:

What I started out doing yesterday was sewing an ensign to the leech of the mizzen. The ensign is supposed to be at least 1" for each foot of boat. This one is 18"; just right, I think.

The photo above shows the hoops in place for the cockpit cover that Mary made. I added a ridge pole and extended it over the end of the boom. (Photo later.) Here's a corner of it below:

Both sides have a full-length zipper along the bottom edge, from a tent or whatever it was cut from. I haven't done anything with them yet, but I'm contemplating re-making that bottom edge to bring it up higher for more breeze on a hot day.

You can see I've added a bungee to the spring line in that photo above. I keep forgetting to document all the stuff I do. There are now bungees on all attachments (two on the bow, one on the stern, plus the spring line), and the painter and a rope stern line are there for security. When I come in to the dock, all the lines except the painter are on the dock and I clip them on or, in the case of the spring line, hook it over the cleat. The only line I tie then is the painter, loosely.

Here are some more pics from Friday:

Oh, I just noticed this one shows the two bungees at the bow (just).

This one shows the hold-back for the port daggerboard, the jibsheet cam cleat, etc. The aft bumper is clipped to the daggerboard hold-back bolt, while the forward bumper is looped over the hand rail. It comes off entirely by shoving the bumper through the loosened loop, of course:

I forgot to take a photo of the new mainsheet cam cleat arrangement.