The weather was pretty wet and there wasn't much wind, so we sat on a mooring at the Colintraive Hotel and in between showers dashed out to do bits.
I bought a second hand sail from the Saturn Sails website over the winter, and it has turned out to be the bargain of the century (so far..).
It was made by Malcolm Sails who morphed into North Sails (Northern branch) about 5 years ago. So the main is probably about 5+ years old, but looks and feels in remarkably good condition, is fully battened and cost all in (including battens which were missing and new sail numbers) less than £300.
One problem was that the two reefing points were cringles with sewn tape on the side of the sail at the leech and luff. The existing Moody set up had Reef #1 to starboard and reef #2 to port. On this sail they were the other way around. As the reef line lengths were different this meant I had to change them over in the boom.
In addition, the sail outhaul started life on the middle sheeve at the mast but came out on the starboard sheeve at the end of the boom.
All went well. Mousing string attached to the reef pennants and outhaul and pulled through to the mast. Pennants reattached to the mouse and pulled back through.
Youv'e all been waiting for the bu66er bit. The pennants wouldn't pass through the sheeve at the boom end. No problem. Pin for all three sheeves held by split ring, pull pin out fiddle pennants round sheeves put back to gether again.
Well we only lost one sheeve inside the boom before the penny dropped that the sheeves have just enough room to squeeze inside the boom past the new pennant.
Held the other two with long nosed pliers and re-inserted sheeve pin.
Will have to have reef #1 going round the sheeve pin until the end of the season until boom comes off boat and up-ended.
Other than that, everything worked well.
The new main, by the way, sets beatifully, though we havn't had much wind to really test it.
As for only having two reefs, the second reef is
really deep.
No doubt more fun jobs to be posted here in the coming months.....
Donald
