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I kinda cheated and called out sick today. I was one of those days where i needed to occupy my mind with something other than work. I also needed to be solitary.
I took out the Reenie K to Spruce Run again, this time single handing. Boy, she sails sweet! (I keep saying that, huh?) She held her course as long as the wind stayed steady, which was about 5 minutes at a time.
The new motor is GREAT! Thank you Howard! It's more motor than I need, really. But I'd rather have a big motor used lightly than a little motor that has to strain. I have no qualms about the Raritan Bay (after the river), the Barnegat, Long Island Sound or The Chesapeake. That motor will get us home. It moved me fast enough on 1/2 throttle. I'm betting I could tow with it, if I needed to.
I made a few rigging changes after the last trip, too. I moved the jib cleats inboard on top of the cockpit rail. That worked really nicely. Much easier to cleat and uncleat!
I moved the horn forward to get it out of the way of the jib sheets. The jib sheets still hang up on the mast step, but I have the fix for that. I'm going to box the mast step with some oak. That way, the sheet will tend to roll up the mast on change of tack.
I did me first jibe on the Reenie K today (yes it was planned). The winds were very light, so I tried it out. I'm dry, so it must have worked. I also managed to sail her wing and wing for a bit. She tends to nosedive when I do that. A better way would be a spinnaker to lift her bow more, but that's beyond my skills right now.
Moving the boom crutch forward worked too. The main traveler doesn't hang up as much, the boom is easier to roll the sail around and I was even able to fly the ensign today for the first time.
Here are the pics for today. Not very many, I'm afraid... It was a little busy singlehanding (and the damn pager kept going off!) These pics show the Reenie K ready to leave the dock. You can see the portholes I made pretty well. You can also see the new location of the boom crutch pretty well. I need someone to take pics of her under way.
The last pic is a guy who was out on a windsurfer, Brave soul he!
