Monday morning - sunny and clear and calm. Off to the dock to haul out the mainsail and hope the wind cooperated, meaning no breeze or wind at all would be very helpful to our endeavors.
It has been far too long since we folded and stowed our sails; this was a re-learning exercise as well as a chance to check the condition of our Sobstad mainsail. We also have a Dutchman Sail Flaking System for dropping and flaking the main. This requires feeding mono-filament line through fairleads in the sail, acting as vertical control lines. We have two lines, attached to the topping lift and to pockets at the base of the sail. The theory is these lines guide the main down on alternate sides of the boom, all nicely 'flaked'. Setting up the system took a bit of calculation and ensuring the lines ended up on the same side. The Admiral spent her time under the sail threading line back and forth. The Captain ensured the lengths of the lines were accurate.
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| Dutchman flaking system: Mono-filament threaded through plastic fair-leads |
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| Adjusting length of forward line |
A major effort was needed to attach the clew to the out-hall at the back of the boom to secure the foot of the sail. Shrinkage? No - only a sail that had been folded and stored and a bit stiff.
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| Clew finally reached out-hall and attached |
The slides on the luff (front, closest to the mast) were fed into the slot on the mast and Kelly slowly raised up the sail. We intended to slide in the battens, but by this time, the daily breeze was noticeable, so it was time to drop the sail, and fine tune things another day. Sail-ties and sail cover to tidy up. One more 'to do' we could check off, more or less.
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| Mainsail cover on |
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