The learning curve

[David Smith]

Hi All,

What a fantastic weekend of sailing on Lake Ontario. Lots of wind so no top batten issues and the gudgeon pin is holding up just fine with it's newly drilled and split pinned cap.

Friday was perhaps the best sailing day of the year so far. Steady 15 knot westerly and just about the limit of what I am comfortable with single handed. Great fun with the lee rail buried a lot of the time and no way did I even rig the Genny (middle name is "Chicken"). I was able to hold my own close hauled but reaching and downwind was able to pass just about everything on our bit of the lake. Such satisfaction!  Sunday there was considerably more wind and quite some wave activity. Son-in-Law as crew gets big time kudos for taking almost all the spray and keeping the helmsman dry!  When I bought the boat I opted for the reefable mainsail rather than the "race" sail and Sunday was the justification. With full main up, the boat sailed close hauled very well, perhaps spilling just a bit of efficiency if you made close study of the luff. But beam reaching was not even possible. The main completely overpowered the rudder and we were back close hauled without wanting to be. Perhaps with three crew including one out on a trapeze (which I have not built or rigged) we might have managed that mainsail in that wind, but I have my doubts. With the mainsail reefed the boat was transformed - what a blast. It totally flew on all points of sail and the learning curve went ballistic!

 

As to the learning curve - well, it continues, sometimes delivering lessons, sometimes mysteries, and sometimes just plain unfathomable. I will attempt to pass on the useful bits (with apologies to most of you who will have figured out this stuff already), and also request tech help on issue number one below . . . . .

 

1. When I got to the boat on Friday morning, I was a little dismayed to find two stainless steel rigging screws in the cockpit. They appeared to have been violently ripped from the boat as the threads contained a fair bit of plastic. A quick check revealed that the starboard centreboard trunk top plate (black anodized aluminium) was missing the forward two screws. I have no idea how this could have happened. There is no damage that I can see to the top plate itself, however the screw holes are inevitably reamed out and a bit larger than nature intended. I replaced the screws in the holes very lightly. Complete mystery!  The good news is that the screws stayed in place during a vigorous sailing weekend and there appears to be no bad result. As far as I can see, there is no circumstance that places stress on the centreboard trunk top plates but perhaps I am missing something. Can anybody suggest  how I can repair the plastic holes so that these screws can be replaced more securely?
2. While broad reaching single handed, the centreboard kept floating up from an intermediate position. A small adjustment to the friction tubes (garden hose?) helped a little but the problem persisted. From a broad reach to downwind,  I find that with no centreboard at all and even a little wave action, the boat becomes quite "broachy" and uncomfortable. After almost dumping it a couple of times, I decided to run with the board fully down. Much better, except that downwind, the board floated back up in the trunk with little helpful resistance from the garden hoses. Quite by accident, I "overcentred" or "overlowered" the board, seemingly past the vertical and it went past the ends of the garden hoses. Voila!  Problem solved, the hose ends acted as stoppers and the board stayed down. I expect you have already discovered this - but quite a useful revelation to me!
3. When I picked up the boat in early July, dealer Morten Fogh (his Dad was a world renown sail maker and used to make the sails for Laser so that is perhaps why you know the name) very kindly spent time with me setting up the boat, making sure everything was there and passing on tricks that he has learned over the years. One trick that got my attention was his method of rigging the jib and Genny sheets. He creates a continuous cockpit loop and passes both ends through the respective clews with stopper knots at the clews. Very neat and clever. The advantage is that you can always reach the required sheet without upsetting the boat balance. Great for single handing or with novice crew. With the shorter jib sheet, I shall continue to do this and it works very well. But the longer Genny sheet is quite another story. There goes the weather Genny sheet under the hull and passes behind the partially raised centreboard! As a continuous loop there is now no way to retrieve it short of grabbing the clew and untying the stopper knot of the sheet and hauling the whole mess inboard from the lee (working) side of the sheet. (Are you laughing yet?!!!). In that wind there was no hope of getting outboard on the lee to get anywhere near the Genny clew. Bugger! Douse the Genny and use two sails until back in harbour. Next time we shall rig the Genny sheet in the traditional manner, with half the sheet at the clew and the two tails stoppered aft of the ratchet blocks.
4. Another issue with the Genny Sheet was that while absolutely screaming along on a broad reach and laughing our heads off at the exhilaration of it, I glanced down to see the sheet wrapped twice around my ankle! Oh boy, does that ever concentrate the mind! A capsize in that state was potentially very dangerous indeed. So no Genny Sheet loops for me, and I will even have a care about tidy seamanship with sheets that are not in use. But I expect we shall still laugh a lot!
5. Shore rigging the Genny in a stiffish breeze could hurt the sail so I devised a cunning plan (did you ever hear of Blackadder and his sidekick Baldrick?)...... Seems to me that the trick is to find the centre patch and retrieve ring, tie them off and pull the sail in to the sock. So let me see, so far we have a) neglected to untie the ring and centre patch, b) threaded the halyard through the pole webbing, c)  got the sheet between the hull and the tack line d) completely missed the pole launch pulley  e) brought the halyard back to the jam cleat on the wrong side of the vang tensioning rigging . . . . . and I could go on through much of the alphabet and I cringe at the hilarity we have given others watching our inexpert antics - but each time we get it wrong, we learn a bit more we have also had a number of successful rigs, launches and retrieves and wow, that sail adds mucho excitement. I have made up a three foot length of 1/4" dowel with a small hook in one end as an aid to rigging the genny. It works very well.

Funny moments? Well at one point the tail of the mainsheet, complete with it's stopper knot exited unnoticed through the scupper. The drag on the sheet is significant and the transition from close hauled to beam reach got momentarily hairy as the mainsail was quite reluctant to loose off. Then there was the time that we were close hauled, bums over the side, tummy muscles being frantically toned, spray flying etc. etc. and my mobile phone which is safely in the "dry" box amidships starts to ring. Ain't no way we are loosing the impromptu race with the other guy to get to that phone. The ring tone, "Eye of the Tiger" from the Rocky movies. Perfect!!!!!!!!!

 

Happy sailing all,

 

Dave