What did/didn't Work this season

dom said:
In France? First, a bow fender is a bit wimpy as indeed are all fenders. But this 'slowly nudging' bit; just no.

The procedure is this:

  1. Enter marina at a fair old lick.
  2. If you rig fenders they should be trailing in the water.
  3. Swing into a vaguely vacant space
  4. Only brake at last minute as boat will naturally stop as bow rides up the pontoon.
  5. Lob a few lines ashore and invite all for a super friendly aperitif on board.
:D:D
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'lines'? No, only one line; an enormously long length of ancient, frayed three-strand manilla rope, stiff with age and dirt, tangled, knotted and not attached to anything is hurled at you to sort out! :D
 
What worked:
-a new carbon fibre passerelle, so much lighter and easier to extend or retract than the previous plastic one.
-the weather in Greece & Turkey where we sail.
What did not really work:
-my longtime old friend and reliable crew, whose wonky hips are now really restricting his participation.
 
Aja said:
Until it gets a bit bouncy and you fumble and nearly lose an eye. Dangerous things.
Donald
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Yes I have had a bungee hook caught in my eye socket, and also been hit in the teeth by an elasticated tether, not a fan personally..which reminds me:
What didn't work..a tether with a long and short bit, both stretchy..one of my crew gave me this but it's a faff at best, and one side got snagged, stretched tight then freed itself and snapped back into my front teeth :(
 
LONG_KEELER said:
Sorry to hear that. Did the stack pack itself have two battens ? They really are essential for me. I did find that hoisting and lowering does require more accuracy . The throat of the mast track /lazy jacks was rather narrow at first, kept getting the full length sail battens caught.
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Full length battens along the boom, traditional short battens on the sail, which caught under the lazyjacks every time the sail went up (never did get round to pulling them out the way) and flopped over them when the sail came down. All dealable-with, and the zip-and-it's-done sail cover was nice, but the additional time taken to sort them out outweighed the time savings.

Basically, I think my boat at 26' is just on the edge of where stack packs are worthwhile.

Also, I rigged the lazy jacks beneath the spreaders rather than higher up . Things were done in quite a hurry and I will change it some time in the future.
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That's where mine were until, with a sigh of relieve, I pulled them through.

Don't chuck it out yet. We're here to help you know :)
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Much appreciated. For now I am happy with my solution, but maybe I'll change my mind one day.
 
Ohlin Karcher said:
That millipede is such a good idea, I'm surprised they aren't more common.
.
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Millipedes and simple bungee/ball sail ties were banend from my boat after I had witnessed someone being hit in the eye by one. The doctor told him he was within 1mm of losing his eye. Fortunately it was only an internal bleeding with no permanent effect.
 
What didn’t work: my Skanti VHF whose microphone cable cover disintegrated. I spent quite some time scouring the internet and calling past importers but could not find a replacement. One I sourced from Latvia turned out not to be the right cable. So finally I had to replace the whole set.
What did work: negotiating with my boss to get seven weeks off, which enabled me to visit the Norwegian fjords. Magnificent place. What’s more, we had wind over the quarter both on the trips North and South.
 
A full season without any refit stuff, that was good.
Scuffing a hole in my new Genoa on the inner forestay that was bad.
 
Coppercoating the boat.

The hull was like the surface of the moon and I am sure it has never been blasted back to the original surface.

On picking the boat up we were at hull speed in a F4 and she just slid through the water. Five months later and there is nothing growing on the hull.

It did take a substantial amount of research to find a company who would do the job at a sensible cost. I had it done at Mylor in Cornwall, at a price that was sensible AND they do in in a shed so have far more control over the conditions that the stuff is applied.
 
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I use a Millipede and avoid being hit in the eye by simply ensuring that the plastic togggles are on the opposite side of the boom to the side I'm standing at.

Then, if I accidentally let one go, it flies away from me; not towards me.
 
matt1 said:
Big change for me, I changed the entire boat!

What worked

Transformative Singlehanded sailing. Thought my 31' was a delight to sail SH but the Hanse 418 is even easier still. Who knew?...…..apparently a bigger boat could be easier to sail?
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How do you get on berthing?
I nearly changed my 311 for a 38ft Hanse this year but I looked up at that mainsail & chickened out.If things go wrong I was worried about handling it.
Then I wondered how I might get on in all the different berths I go in. I also go through about 20 different locks every year. All single handed.
Do you find the extra size difficult in those situations.
 
Stackpacks are great. But you need to get them right. By far and away the best way to do this is to put bungee in the system so that the lines never have excessive slack, and then run the upper end as far out along the spreaders as you can. In that way hoisting without catching the lines becomes child's play.

For me this season what worked was our heavy air speed and boat handling.
What didn't work as well was our light air speed.

So it was nice that our biggest event this year, Cowes, was windy!
 
LONG_KEELER said:
Pleased that things are turning round for you.

Was the boom tent a bespoke affair or a DIY job ? I don't think my funds will allow something expensive at the moment. Thought about buying a nice rectangle of Sumbrella fabric that would match the sail cover. Rigged below the boom to stop the weather and drips when banged up aboard due to the wonderful UK wind and rain.
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I have no skill with a sewing machine, we paid - an arm, both legs and a kidney, but still worth it! If I had to DIY, I'd hang a piece of fabric from a pole attached to the backstay at one end and hung from the boom at the other. At the forward end, I'd have some bungy to hold the fabric down on the sprayhood and aft, make some triangular curtains to close it off. Being totally enclosed, with windows is a definite plus - it keeps those chilly breezes out, not to mention the rain!

westhinder said:
Millipedes and simple bungee/ball sail ties were banend from my boat after I had witnessed someone being hit in the eye by one. The doctor told him he was within 1mm of losing his eye. Fortunately it was only an internal bleeding with no permanent effect.
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I had a type of millipede, but far safer. It was two lines of bungy running under the boom, sewn together at intervals and a plastic hook on one side, between each sewing:

x--------x----------x---------x------------x
x---j----x----j------x----j----x------j-----x

Grab the side without the hook and lift it over the sail, than take the hook and hook it on. If the hook escapes, it'll stay close to the sail as it goes back under the boom, so far less risk of damage to the user. Not sure how it well would work on a bigger boat, though.
 
I'm not sure what problem the milipede is trying to solve that isn't just as easily solved with standard sail ties.
 
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