Sunshine = Sunburn

I am sunburned, notwithstanding my application of 15 SPF and then 30 SPF (too late). And very wind-tousled. It was REALLY WINDY -- whitecaps in the anchorage, literal whistling sounds in the rigging because of the force of the wind. So Jud Smith, the visiting rock star boat specialist, gave a "dock talk" lecture about mast rake and mast bend and forestay tension and shroud tension and backstay tension and all the various ways those interplay. It was pretty high-level; I could barely follow along. His philosophy is that everything about the boat can be reduced to getting the forestay tension right. Sounds simple, but there are a zillion ways to do that -- and if you do one thing, and get the forestay right, it might disrupt something else, so you need to make another adjustment to correct for the thing you disrupted, and so there are about six different elements you are trying to control as the wind increases or decreases, just to get the forestay tension right. It's fascinating and so damn elusive. Way over my head, mostly. But I left today having learned a couple of things. I had lee helm (a bad feeling) last season because my forestay was too short, and I didn't have enough mast rake. It didn't have anything to do with my shroud tension, even though I had those too tight until August, when I loosened them way way up and finally won a race or two.

We didn't sail because it was too windy, so Jud just went around to everyone's boats and answered questions. I spent some claustrophobic time in a pointy dark crawlspace in the bow of the boat and lengthened my forestay by an inch. We moved the base of our mast forward half an inch, and might move it yet further forward. We installed a "deflector" (which made me feel like I was in a Harry Potter book) -- a line and pulley arrangement to make fine adjustments to the tension of the jib halyard. We made a plan for our boom vang and our cunningham -- long time problems for me. We marked our backstay in three places so we have benchmark settings at different windspeeds. We scrubbed and coiled and replaced and taped and sponged out the boat, until it looks like it's in reasonably good order. I'm feeling this great tired and relaxed feeling of achievement. I know my boat a little better than I did at the beginning of the day. There is lots left to tweak, but I think we're in better shape this year than we were last year at this time. And that's what it's all about, right?

Jud had a funny word for some of the ancient and klugey arrangements or systems we had on our boat. He would say, "hmm, this block system you've got is kind of agricultural, but I think it would work." Meaning old and outdated. Our former jib halyard adjustment was agricultural, before we installed the deflector. Our mast blocking system is agricultural. Our boom vang is kind of agricultural, but that's not so important. Interesting.

Comments

::phew:: And I just took my 2nd sailing lesson yesterday (tons o' fun!). You can imagine where your post leaves me! :)

[pjm]

I just want to type the sentence, "we didn't sail because it was too windy."