New Sails

We have new sails to play with!  Four in all.  I had the main surveyed and it turns out it needed replacing.  It could have been repaired, but it wouldn’t have been worthwhile.  I’d have needed to replace it before heading across an ocean anyway.

I also needed storm sails.  A storm jib and a storm trisail have been added to the inventory.  Both have florescent visibility patches.  I still need to add some deck hardware for the trisail sheets and a new trisail halyard which will double as a spare topping lift, but the storm jib had a new halyard added around this time last year.  It gets hanked on to a solent stay, also added last year, that will allow the genoa to be furled when the storm jib is in use.  The solent stay is a temporary inner forestay that is anchored to the deck just abaft of the forestay the genoa furls around.  When the solent stay is not in use it is disconnected from the foredeck and anchored to the mast.

Lastly, I’ve added a drifter to the sail inventory.  The drifter is a light air sail that will allow us to sail up wind where the asymmetrical spinnaker is for down wind use.  Both are made out of colored nylon and both have their own continuous loop furler.  The spinnaker tack is anchored to a removable bowsprit and the drifter is anchored to the pad eye used for the solent stay.

For more information on drifters, Carol Hasse’s article is well worth reading:
http://www.porttownsendsails.com/pdf/light_air_sails.pdf

The Procrastinating Swimmer

Quijote is a little gimpy at the moment.  Looking into the question of when I need to change the engine coolant, I discovered that the engine had the wrong kind of coolant in it.  It shouldn’t be a big problem, but it is certainly worth changing it out, since the coolant is several years old anyway.  I drained the old coolant and filled the engine with distilled water.  Then I started the engine, intending to warm it up and let it circulate before draining it again.  Unfortunately when I did that, I discovered that with the engine running there was no water coming out of the exhaust.  That’s usually an indicator that the sea water impeller is damaged.   When I opened the pump, though, there was nothing wrong with the impeller.  Hmmm….

The next step was to remove the hose from the water inlet valve (after closing the valve) and put the hose in a bucket of water.  Then I started the engine and watched the engine suck water out of the bucket.  That tells me there is nothing wrong with the engine, that the sea water inlet is obstructed.

I was imagining a large build up of barnacles and other unfettered sea growth, but reading a book on boat maintenance, the author says it is very common for the sea water inlet to be clogged with plastic bags that float around in the water.  In any case I won’t know until I can dive under the boat and have a look.

The temperatures over the last couple of weeks have not encouraged me to be very diving adventurous, however, so I’ve been giving the weather some time to warm up.  I’m also giving some serous thought to buying a scuba tank that will give me time under the boat for a more thorough examination of the condition of the hull, the paint, and the various anodes used to fight corrosion. Depending on what is learned, I might still want to haul the boat out of the water to have the bottom painted, the anodes replaced, or repair any other problems I find.  The boat is in fresh water, so I don't expect to see much in the way of all that, but you never know.

Or I'll pay someone to take a look and spare myself the swim.  There is something about going for a swim in 35˚ weather that just doesn't motivate me, wetsuit or not.