With the Christmas in Georgetown plans quickly sneaking up on us, we had a sail repair guy come and look at our new, used sail yesterday. We had high hopes that he would be able to fix our sail to make it better fit our boat and have it returned to us by Friday so that we might set sail this weekend. He showed up right on time and he and Brad got to work inspecting the sail. They raised it, they reefed it, they raised it again. They tugged on the topping lift, then released it, then pulled the clew tight to the boom and released it and then repeated. There was a lot of hemming and hawing and raising and lowering. But, an hour later, much to our sheer delight, he declared that we had a purchased a great sail and he didn't think we needed any repair work done to it.
When I came out to inspect his work, the sail was a perfect shape. He and Brad had pulled it tight to hug the shape of our boom and it looked great! And, after all of that, he didn't charge us a thing! He was such a fantastically, helpful guy!
Next on the list - tackling the head sail. Our rolling furling (which is the system that rolls the sail up around the forestay) had become corroded and was no longer working. This is something we had been having trouble with the last year we went sailing - and we are only just now getting around to it. After a few hours work, and again, hauling the sail up and down the forestay three times, Brad finally got it working. A lot of elbow grease, a can of dry lube and some new lines and she works good as new!!
Now, this boat is actually looking like it could possibly go sailing! As the day came to a close, it hit us that we are almost ready to head out and this time next week we should be staging to head over to the Bahamas! (Soon after, the panic set in and I began making new lists for all the last minute things we would need to get done!) Looks like all our hard work is about to pay off!!
No comments:
Post a Comment