October 2, 2018, Sailing Again

wingssail images-fredrick roswold
John Trims the New Kite

We’ve been heads down working, not sailing, for three months. The boat has been laid up.

Now the boat is back together and though the work is not finished it is to a point that we can sail and we have some new sails to try so we will go out tomorrow.

Sitting on my settee, the Chicken Tikka and red wine still warm in my belly, I felt the cool bundle of battens for the carbon mainsail lying on the pilot berth next to me where I placed them earlier which must be mated with the sail and set for the first time along with a new jib fresh out of the bag and a new spinnaker, still unseen.

Oh Heaven, new sails, a refreshed boat, and a good breeze forecast. I trembled with anticipation.

The crew shows up on time and we strike the awning and single up the lines and then we head out.

Out of the marina, out to the Pacific Ocean, out into the breeze.

The mainsail unfolds from the deck and snakes skyward. It fills, we heel. Next the jib; it is stiff and hard to handle; the price we pay for a racing sail.

But when these awkward sails are aloft and their shapes reveal the power designed into them the boat starts climbing to windward. We love it.

The new mainsheet winches make sheeting the main seem effortless. We are happy that change worked. The new runner leads are good. The secondary winches are fine, and other sheeting revisions don’t even seem worthy of note.

It’s all good.

But this is a test run, to look things over, to find stuff which needs to be fixed. We see that the jib needs a strop because the shackles can’t fit into the small ring. That goes onto the list. Then the kite is set. What a foul-up! We hooked it up backwards, my fault, I’d told Kelly, “Red is the tack.” But it was green. So we took it down and reversed it, then there was a twist we had to undo.

But when the new spinnaker filled, finally, we had had some fun. It was flat and we sheeted it in and sailed high onto the wind. Up we went. The crew was amazed but I nodded, this is what I ordered and this is what I designed.

We jibed and some more items went on the list, a prod for the lazy guy, some chafe patches, new rings on the kite. The bags need some labeling; plenty of time for all of this, racing does not start until December.

And then we were back. We folded sails and sent the crew home; too hot to ask them to hang around any longer. Judy and I finished it off; we folded the kite after dinner.

Now we can focus on the smaller projects. We know the main things are done and the boat can still sail.

In December we will be ready.

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Fred & Judy, SV Wings, La Cruz Huancaxtle