Quickly we had her put to bed and headed home after a long, tiring day.
With the storms gone it was time for some serious boat fun. But first I had some homework from Kristian, and some tuning and organizing to do. I had put a high priority on keeping Bolero's rig as consistent with the Shields one design as possible so I could take advantage of all the tuning expertise that has been created over the years. With that in mind a shot off an email to Kristian and he had some definite and welcome suggestions.
First task was taking a number of measurements to check where Bolero is compared to a "normal" Shields. Turns out she is pretty consistent. The one big change, and it is apparently a common one, is to lengthen her headstay to increase the mast rake, add a bit of weather helm, and have her better set up to depower the main and jib with additional backstay tension.
In addition to two of my "brilliant" rigging solutions from this winter turned out to be crap. The stainless eye that I attached a shackle to for my reef tack and my clunky downhaul system. Kristian immediately noticed that the eye might rotate into the mast downwind and the downhaul, well it was just bad. Especially since I manage to rig the boom vang this year. So it looks like Bolero will be getting a new fixed gooseneck, a new cunningham setup, and a link plate to extend the headstay.
I did take a quick sail but nothing really photogenic until I return to the mooring (where I succeeded in surpassing the disaster of my launch day mooring pickup). Where one of my plastic classic neighbors was out for a sail. An Alberg 35 I believe that I had never seen her with her sails up. Pretty sweet.
Our first real sail was yesterday. The forecast was for 5 to 15 kts from the NW which is a bit unusual and quite welcomed since we sailed out through the channel at a very low tide against a strong current. This is always a bit disconcerting since the water is so clear during the flood that the bottom looks 6 inches away.
With the unusual wind direction we headed south against the current towards San Juan channel. I had a brief thought that maybe we could poke our nose into the Strait but the wind didnt' last and we had to turn around an coast home with the current.
On the way home I saw my friend Dick with his new, to him, Flicka. So we sailed over and chated and took photos for as long as we dared in the dieing evening breeze.
One of the Murphy's laws about our moorings is that I can practically row to get there, but there will be lots of wind at the mooring. This was great as it gave me the much needed opportunity to shoot some practice approaches. I am still not used to how much way Bolero carries and just how good she is at turning wind into speed. So I practiced a half a dozen approaches until it went perfectly. Laura even decide she was ready to learn how to pick up the mooring and it went great.