New clutches and organizers

On medium and heavy air days, Santeria's halyards were slipping through the rope clutches. We had to constantly adjust this tension and couldn't just set it and forget it. 

To improve deck halyard organization, I also wanted more control points leading back to the cockpit for other control lines like genoa downhaul or asymetric tack pendant control line.

3 new components were installed:

1 XAS Spinlock triple rope clutches (Shown here port side. Will try to pick up a second at the boat show)

 2 T4 Spinlock Deck Organizers

Sail maintenance -Slugs

A few of the lugs on the main sail were failing whereby the webbing twine knot was coming apart. 

A little hand sewing with needle and replacement thread and this was easily fixed.

Tiller Extension - Make your own receptacle

I had an old tiller extension that was given to me, but it didn't have a receptacle for the pintle.  Instead of buying one,  I found these pieces of wood and metal in my scrap bin:

The idea:

Make these pieces work as the tiller extension receptacle.

meranti mahogany wood base  1 1/2 X 1 3/4 X 6
Stainless steel thimble 5/8" (center of thimble was drilled to size of tiller extension pintle)
Aluminum flat bar 1/2" X 1/2" X 3/16"

1. Drilled hole through wood
2. Fitted thimble through back entry into wood base, sizing the pre-drilled hole to the outer diameter of the SS thimble, then using a router sized the top of the thimble into the wood base.
3. applied router to the top part of wood so that aluminum flat bar fit flat/flush with the top of the wood base.
4. 2 applications of epoxy to set both the thimble and flat bar in place

The result:

The wood base should be fastened to the tiller using screws or bolts into the tiller.

Sep 15 - Newcastle Cup 2012

The winner of this race was Dave Thompson on Patricia. Single handed too! Way to go Dave.

With me was PH Smith. We decided to fly the spinny. Go big or go home!

Our track:

https://maps.google.ca/maps?hl=en&q=http://www.newcastleyachtclub.com/bart/OshawaRace2012.kml&ie=UTF-8 

Winds were constantly changing from NW to WNW, altering out course at times (10-15 Degrees) by the minute.

The Oshawa race was much like the W50, beating there, and close reaching back. this pooched our ability to fly the symmetric spinnaker as an advantage, for any length of duration, on either leg. We did however find that when heeled over 15 Degrees with puffs over 10 kts True, we could carry the Symmetrical spinny between beam reach and close reaching angles--pretty cool. Sailing the Symmetrical to beam reach and close reaching angles is a real balancing act that involves the trimmer and driver. We carried the spinny from Oshawa mark, to St Marys in these conditions then dropped it and close reached to 2 NM, then redeployed the spinnaker when conditions lightened in the Bay of Death 

Again having an Asym in the arsenal would have put Santeria into top gear! We also found that twisting the main (all the way to windward on the traveller) puts the top main battens in the proper position. Some tidbits of info for next year.