Episode 15 Curses and other discretions

Today, the planets aligned, or so I thought. My boat was finally ready for a sail - the new standing rigging was on, the new foresail was wrapped neatly around the furler, and I’d even checked for leaks the previous weekend to find none.

 But, the winds were a little too fresh. A sustained gust at the hardstand, just as I was about to hook up the trailer in the morning, persuaded me to go home and wait another week.

My current sweet spot for windspeed is about 5 to 15 knots. I’d go out in less than 5 knots, but I’ll be prepared for lots of idling around with the possibility of pushing against the tide with the motor. I’d also go out in winds a little fresher than 15 knots, but not without some assistance from a deck-hand, and not with the new, but untried, wardrobe that now dresses the big pole in the middle.

Being short-handed (a sailing term meaning that you haven’t organised a mate to help out), I regarded the forecast of 15 knots, strengthening too 25 in the afternoon, as borderline and, possibly, delusional. I would either launch the boat and curse myself when things got exciting, or go home and curse the weather. I opted for the latter, which was galling, because high tide was in the middle of the day and the recent rain had subsided to possible showers. The former was nice for launching and retrieving, and the latter, tolerable with a chance to dry off.

It has been while since my previous posts, and the reason is that the boat has been laid up since the end of October. 3 months! Since hypothesising that the boat’s wire luff on the foresail made it sail like a garden tub tied to a plastic bag flapping about in the wind, I elected to change the standing rigging. The turnbuckles on the old wire rigging had no adjustment left in them, so all the tensions and angles on the mast were wrong, like a badly tuned guitar with a warped neck. Following a recommendation from Ullman Sails, I got Rope Solutions to replace the rigging. Replacing the rigging also required replacing the foresail. The new rigging, with fully adjustable turnbuckles cost about $3,100 including GST, a Furlex 50s Furler, and labour to tune it all.

A couple of things to note here;

1. Don’t try to get things done before Christmas. If you’ve ever followed the program “Grand Designs”, you’ll know that aiming to get things done before Christmas is a guaranteed way of getting things done before the follow Easter. Fortunately, my delay was only a few weeks, rather than the nine months and several hundreds of thousands of pounds that follows most “Before Christmas” projects on Grand Designs as surely as night follows day 
2. Your rigger will demur on lowering and raising the mast, possibly, because he knows how easy it is to damage stuff, and legitimately, because he can save you labour costs. This means you’d need a mate to help out, unless you’ve become adept at doing it yourself. I’m not adept, which incurred further delays as I hunted around for an available mate who didn’t mind loosing a couple of hours over the weekend. So, thank you Ryan (down) and Pete (up). I also managed to bend one of the turnbuckle screws (add $20), which shows how easy it is for inexperts like myself to damage stuff, even with willing, but inexperienced help. 

Then, the new foresail. The old ones would no longer work, and they were blown out anyway. The sail-maker needed the final dimensions on the rigging after the mast was up again, which is fair enough, but added another couple of weeks to the project. The foresail measures about 12.6 m2 (a tad larger than the old Genoa, at 12.4m2) and cost about $1100, with a UV strip. Because of the Furlex Furler, I am advised that I only need one foresail, and can furl it in or out, depending on conditions, so I don’t need a separate, smaller jib.

Foresails, incidentally, have their own language. A jib is a foresail that does not extend to the mast, but a Genoa does. Storm Jibs are even smaller and are usually used for stability rather than forward motion in a storm (hence the name). To clarify, or perhaps to obfuscate in a profusion of words, these are often referred to as Number 1, Number 2, Number 3. A Number 1 typically has a 150% overlap, which I find misleading because only 33% of it actually extends past the mast and overlaps the main. A Number 2 has 130% to 140% overlap and a Number 3 has a 98% overlap, meaning none, and is, actually, a Jib. To simplify, Number 1 equals big (or Genoa), Number 2 equals middle, and Number 3 equals small (or Jib), followed by Numbers 4 and 5 (or Storm Jibs). These terms are important for racers, but now that I’ve only got the one sail, I’m likely to allow them to fall into disrepair in my lexicon and never refer to them again. From now on, its just “The Foresail”, but I may lapse into “Jib”, or “Genoa”, or even “Jenny”, or “that big white flappy thing at the front”.

So, I would like to report that 3 months and $4,200 have yielded a boat that sails nicely, and that I can sing the praises of Ullman Sails and Rope Solutions. But, alas! And by no fault of either of these fine establishments.

Still, part of the art is knowing your limitations, and today’s winds were just beyond mine.

On the plus side, I got to see my daughter as she, literally, flew through between her friend’s wedding in Adelaide and a job placement in Noosa. She felt a little fragile after being subject to a torrent of free Champagne and Red Wine the previous night, and I, in response, did my best to kerb the boisterous teasing that such a state prompts in older Dads. As Mr Bennett muses in Jane Austin’s Pride and Prejudice “For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our turn?”. My cynicism has not yet plumbed the depths of Mr Bennet’s, in part, because I am cynical of it, and partly because it doesn’t actually yield anything good. It frustrates the simple enjoyment of the good in life, even sailing (gasp!). Cynicism, I have decided, is not the answer, and is its own dour dogma that is as truculent as any religion. Not sailing on this Sunday morning also afforded me the opportunity to meet the new Priest-in-Charge at our church, who seems a good bloke, and I genuinely enjoy going to our church anyway. I’m not afraid of dogma, but I think you have to choose the right one.

 That cursed wind had its compensations, but I’m hoping for better weather next weekend.

Checking for leaks the previous weekend - none found