Put Fantasia in for the Season

We put Fantasia in for the season. Our hosts offered their dock again on Lake Washington. Putting her in was unusually undramatic. We connected up, trailered her to the boat launch, raised the mast in the parking lot (using our mast-raising system), backed it up and launched. It is almost like we knew what we were doing. The only mistake in the whole process was forgetting to release the tie down straps holding the boat to the trailer until the trailer was in the water. It does not float very well when those are still on. Greg had to wade out to release them. He learned from past mistakes, though, and removed the cell phone from his pocket before doing so!

We just motored to the dock and tied up. No sailing today.

New trim on the transom, just below the tiller and behind the rudder.

During the off-season, we fixed some things. There was an original trim piece on the transom that had completely disintegrated. We ordered a new one from Catalina Direct and put it on. The new one, however, did not fit around the existing hardware on the transom. Sandi used a Dremel tool to reshape it and drilled new holes in the plastic to fit the existing holes on the transom. It looks much better than the one that was there.

Before raising the mast, we attached a new cable topping lift for the boom to the mast. We removed the cotter pin to put it in place, but had to go get a replacement cotter pin. We promptly dropped it in grass and spent the next 20 minutes looking for it. We later got a bunch of cotter pins so that would be less annoying. Connecting the cable to the boom is just jury rigged for the moment, but we will fix that later.

We have a new boom vang. The hardware already was in place for one on the mast and boom, but no

The Boom Vang.

blocks. We got a nice one from Catalina Direct, but you can just buy the Harken blocks and get some line. This will not save any money unless you can get the blocks on sale, though.

Our goal for this season is to get the gennaker and spinnaker flying. We have had them in the sail bags since we got the boat. It is unlikely they have ever flown over our boat, as our boat is missing the necessary rigging. The spinnaker was obviously bought used, as it has sail number for a different boat on it.

We are still figuring out the rigging necessary for the nylon sails. We bought a nice Forespar spinnaker pole, but currently there is no way to connect it to the mast. We also bought an ATF spinnaker sock. We will talk more about our spinnaker and gennaker rigging in later posts as we get them in place.

We are looking forward to another season of sailing.