Bad back

Well I went ahead and blew out my back again and now Im on some fun pain medications that make me feel quite fuzzy.

So I went ahead in my haze actually tied (marlin style lacing, scroll down here to see) my sail to the yard and boom as opposed to using plastic zip-ties, though those worked really well.  I optimized my downhaul a little better and most importantly, added a cleat on the boom to give me one level of outhaul purchase.  The outhaul runs from the clew to a loop at the end of the boom, then forward to a cleat.  Only one purchase, but already a marked improvement.  I re-tied the block tiedowns, re-sat the haylard block in the yard, jimmied things nice and straight and shes ready to rock now. 

Hopefully all this will take care of wrinkles, gaps, and inefficient sail shapes that have hindered speed and progress so far.  Time will tell.

Back, heal thyself!  Wind bring your forces to me!  Zinea, Pterodactylus, fly!

The last of the major work

From the last post to Saturday morning (6/12), I have been either at work or home working 9am-1am to get my beautiful Goat Island Skiff ready for launching.  The weather is here, the time is now.  Basically, its a bunch of small items that needed to be taken care of, like gluing the middle seat on:

This is the last time youll see the my patented "Forest of Bricks" to hold down the seat during gluing.  I waited to glue this part because I wanted to make the varnishing of the boat underneath the seat easier.  Less bending and contorting to get under the seat, if you get my drift.

Wait, what? Varnish the inside? Yes, I decided to varnish the inside.  Using a roller, 3 coats, light sanding in between the coats.  It went on easy, no problems.  I also put a 4th coat of varnish on the floor mixed with non-skid grit, and it came out really nice.

These taped off areas got the non-skid.  I used the non-skid material for sale at Duckworks, it worked really nice in the varnish.

Another item of critical importance was a trailer.  So I got one.  A new one.  Holy Splurge!

Its a nice trailer.  I repositioned the bunks to perpendicular to the frame so the hull doesnt "hog" around the bunks.

Also, I needed a tiller extension.  Actually, what I needed was rudder hardware, but thats a post in itself.  BEHOLD!  My Battlestick!

I also had to figure out how to rig this thing.  Its a "balanced lug" rig, and Ive never sailed one nor rigged one, so that took a few hours to figure out.  Its actually going to take a while to figure out to be honest with you, because there are a bunch of variables.  I just wanted it to be up and viable for a first sail.  Part of the fun is tweaking the rig as you sail along! 

Oh boy!  What next!


Theres only one thing left (besides multiple small detail oriented tasks...)

Summer Daze