Five Miles Out

Yesterday was the third attempt to get a good sail in this spring. The forecast was positive for a breezy sail with 15 knot winds at the end of the pier. The wind meter on Water Colors indicated a little over 15 knots, so I decided to raise the mainsail in the reefed position.

All was good, and before you knew it, we were 5 miles north of the port. The winds had subsided, so I shook out the reefing and we came about. The wind slowly declined and that made our hull speed about 2.5 knots. It was nice though, and we enjoyed watching the racers returning from the GYC Scotch Bonnet Race.

I decided to furl in the jib when we approached the river. I pulled the furling line, and it sure did pull easy. Pulling the line and looking at the sail, I discovered the jib wasn't furling in. I went forward to investigate, and found that three screws that hold the furling drum to the rest of the furling hardware had somehow come unscrewed and were missing. That meant that the drum was turning, but not the top part of the furler.

I decided to just take the jib down to make it easy to get into the dock. Once docked, I found 2 of the missing screws in the anchor locker (the furler drum in located below deck in the anchor locker). I put the 2 screws in place and used a longer screw for the third. The jib rolls in nicely now.

One less thing to go wrong when we are cruising in July.