Finally got the Blade in the water on Saturday. It was good, but it wasn’t an exercise in plain sailing.
I went to the Rock Lake regatta in Wisconsin. I left early Saturday morning, but not as early as I had intended to – I still had some work to do in the morning loading the car and trailer, and it took longer than I had planned. Once I got on the road, I was pleased to find that the car pulled the trailer well, although there were a few problems with the way I had tied the spinnaker pole onto the tramp. I had to stop several times to re-tie it and in the end I moved it down onto the frame of the trailer, where I had also tied my beach wheels.
Eventually I got to the lake, but very late. My crew for the day was Jamie, a guy I’d never met before and who had contacted me through the catsailor.com forum. He was waiting for me when I arrived and we got stuck into setting up the boat. There was quite a bit of interest in the boat from the other sailors. However we couldn’t get everything ready in time for the first race.
Once we got out on the course, we found there was lots to learn. Jamie, with a lot more racing experience, was calling our tactics and I concentrated on steering. The wind was very light and we were well off the pace. We could see that the main wasn’t setting well, and it later turned out that the top batten wasn’t in properly. After the third race (our second) a lunch break was called and everyone returned to the beach.
During the lunch break we fixed the problem with the batten, but it was also evident that the draft in the main was a long way forward, which doesn’t look right at all. I’ll need to figure out what’s causing that. We also investigated a problem with the way the ring at the top of the mainsail engages the mainsail hook at the top of the mast and were able to get some good advice from the other club members.
We headed out for the afternoon session and with more wind the boat really started to move. We were in the middle of the starting sequence (the 5 minutes before the start when everyone is vying for position around the start) when suddenly we discovered that the forestay was floating around in mid-air (it was meant to be holding the mast up!). Horrified we realized that the quick-release pin that held it to the bridle fitting (the pelican striker) had, well, quick-released. The only thing holding the mast up was the jib halyard. Oh darn.
We proceeded to head back to shore (a fair trek since the course was set with the start line at the far end of the lake from the beach) hoping that the halyard would hold till we got back. Well, the halyard held, but the cleat it was attached to unfortunately didn’t. The halyard popped out, and the mast started to come down. I leaped up to try and support it while Jamie retrieved the halyard and pulled it back up. We discovered that in the process both the mast’s baseplate and the top of the mast step had been bent. At that point I decided that we wouldn’t be coming back out even if we could re-fit the forestay.
So we packed the boat up, and by the time we were done with that the rest of the boats were heading back to the beach for the day. I drove home that night, not too disappointed. Hopefully I can get everything shipshape in time for the final regatta of the season in two weeks time.