After an abysmal first sail, the one good thing that came out of it was identifying the areas I am struggling with.
- I struggle to control the jib furling as well as manage the jib sheets
- The mainsail reefing isn’t feasible solo as it needs you to go on foredeck
- I can’t hold myself in a fixed position when the boat heels over in the waves
The solutions to these are relatively simple:
- Install self-tailing winches on the sides- this will make it easier to control both the jib sheets and the jib Furler
- Lead all control lines back to the cockpit- this should hopefully mean unless in an emergency I’m not required to go on foredeck
- Add more purchases to the reefing lines- which should make it easier to reef whatever the conditions
- Design and develop some system to hold me on the windward side of the boat
After what feels like an endless few weeks of constant measurement, buying and fitting of parts, I have finally completed all the tasks. To celebrate I took her for her maiden attempt at racing, joining Brighton marina yacht club. This attempt was more successful than my last sailing attempt, but that’s a pretty low bar to start with.
Initially everything was all going okay; we exited the harbour, got the sails up and she was quite happily sailing along. While we were out there, she felt a bit unbalanced as the wind picked up, so I decided to furl some jib away. This should have been easy enough right, having specifically made all those adaptations. Well, that’s when Fear decided to throw me another curve ball. Every time I went to furl the jib it got stuck, no amount of tugging helped.
I initially tried everything I could think of from the cockpit. I could see that the rope was still on the furling drum, and it wasn’t obvious what it was catching on. I decided I needed to go on foredeck and work out what was wrong. Handing the helm over to the crew and asking them to keep us pointing head to wind, I crawled onto the foredeck. Looking up at the jib I could see that the jib Furler was catching on the spinnaker halyard preventing it from working. Bugger! After a lot of faffing on foredeck, holding the spinnaker halyard away from the jib Furler, I got the jib away. At this point though, I was knackered and decided to head back in.
Next job work out what at the top of the jib Furler is catching the spinnaker halyard? Most importantly add
jackstays down the length of the boat so I have something to clip onto when on foredeck, to prevent me from going over the side.
Currently Fear just feels like an endless list of things that are wrong and things that need changing. I won’t lie its incredibly daunting and overwhelming but hopefully if I keep taking things one step at a time eventually we will get there.