Well, today was interesting! OMG! Started at 8, finished near 9 with a nice curry dinner and home by 11pm. Much ass dragging going on by end of day.
Brad must have been up the mast 10 times sorting halyard locks and such… and he has to go up each time we hoist and douse the main… Brave new world there. After much futzing and organizing of safety and related gear and a half dozen riggers and sorters dropping by we got out for the compass adjustments. Just a few folks for that and we stayed under power.
By 5pm we were ready to go again and headed out with a re-run main halyard to test more sails. We had all onboard from regular crew such as Joe, Jay, Brad and me and then Carla and Libby to a mix of folks from 20 year old Josh to Mod 70 sailors, Olympians and the like. No punters there. Beautiful evening with 18 knots of residual sea breeze. The boat is awesome, complicated, frisky, but awesome. We tested the JT and a 3. We used a single reef using more toggle locks, very cool. Dodging ferries and other traffic we flew up the harbour testing all gear. I have to say having hydraulic winches is different. The winch calls for hydraulic pressure which starts the engine, if not running, and provides power. However, if you also have the clutch engaged for forward boat motion the boat takes off as the engine revs, very neat and somewhat unnerving at the same time. The new sails look great, haven’t seen the kites yet but hear they are extra fine as well.
Met a ton of nice people today and with a complicated new Lindy the learning curve is perfectly vertical but we’ll get there.
The boat is so light even harbour waves will throw you about.
I am sure the learning curve will level out but it all starts again with the next wave of crew. I can only imagine the sh-t eating grins we will have off the wind in a big blow with a major kite up doing 20+ knots, can hardly wait…
Cheers for now, Sean