One big annoyance from my first few sails has been the combination on continuous lines and rail mounted cleats. The cleats are uncomfortable to sit on and much worse kept coming uncleared. The main cause of uncleating being over exuberant use of the continuous lines pulling on the backside of the far cleats. Once the cleats on the rail are undone you have to reach them to recleat, likely a problem as your weight goes to the wrong place. Looking at rigging pictures I found images of Daryl’s Farr on face book where the cleats were centerline and led through eyes at the rail. This seemed to fix all my primary issues so I decided to copy. Original layout: Removed and holes filled. Also marked out an extra area for more non skid: At this point I commented on Daryl’s picture and he replied that he no longer ran lines through the eyes, but instead to low friction rings on elastic. As I thought about this made a lot of sense as it would allow more control from outboa...
I had a scrappy piece of paper with my final "get it on the water" checklist and Vida added her own item.... I'd always joked with the kids that Farrout would get broken and repaired many times, partly just to get them used to the idea that this was fine (like capsizing, or falling off your bike). Anyway.... To work off some Jetlag I took Farrout for a lovely winters day sail. By the time I got on the water the wind had died down a bit from it's midday peak but it was still strong enough to have us skipping across the harbor. First things first I needed to do was test some of the changes I'd made. Improvements to rigging setup: Great! Fast setup of shrouds, quick attachment of rudder, boat breaker line just the right length. Took 20 minutes to rig and next time will be quicker as it's tuned already! New Zhik sea boots: Comfy, but not the extra grip I was hoping for. Going to have to extend the foot rests higher to get better purchase I think....
Had another sail, this time with some wind. Still not on the wire though (I blame my weight, well, also the wind). Almost capsized a couple of times due to slips, or messing up with the long tiller extension. Came back with a few more projects. My hands were weak after three hours of sailing, and my legs bruised (find myself kneeling a lot in lighter air). [ Done ] Rework outhaul so it doesn't rub against the vang [ Done ] Raise the trapeze rings so I can crouch/wire in lighter air [ Done ] Improve travel on the vang, I two blocked it at one point [ Done ] Add ratcheting block to the mainsheet system Add non skid to a couple of sections Seriously consider foam pads in areas on the deck! In general though my first set of improvements (mainly the new smaller lines!) worked well. Some of this is already done. New lines to the left below, old to the right. MUCH cleaner now! The new sleeve on the boom worked well, though it may need some reinforcements ...
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