Bending on the sails

Shahnaz wondering where this goes.

So goes the salty saying. You don't tie the washing to strings and pull them up the sticks, you bend on the sails and hoist them up the masts. Well, ok. You certainly need a bender when you have done.

Just for those who did not catch the news the first time round, or who may have forgotten: We are planning a Chinese Junk style rig for Dreamtime. The sails were made a year ago, but only now we got to bend them on, in anticipation of going sailing in a week or so.

Sunrise on the way to the Vaal dam

Shahnaz helped put the battens in, puzzling at the complications of it. Thanks, love. And Reinhard left home at sunrise to help over two weeks to get them up, on to the masts, to unravel the macrame of lines, hoists, sheets, lazyjacks, sheetlets... the list is endless and the tangles unbelievable. Thanks, Reinhard, I appreciate your patience, support, engouragement and help.

Reinhard wondering where this goes

So today we got them up, and discovered a few problems. The mainsail is longer than planned (Ok, my impeccable planning and measurement actually intended it to sweep the decks, which is why I made the pinrail system movable. And the foresail fouls the forestay. Well, the long term planning is to have the foremast, and probably the mainmast too, unstayed. So there.

Oops! The foresail refuses to cooperate

The experts talk about snotters, parrel hauls, Hong Kong parrels, and much more, but for the moment there are enough bits of string to keep a tribe of monkeys happy. We think it works. Or will, with some untangling.

More or less up. The mainsail is too low

There we go. Now for the sheets...

Now the sheets have to be made up, some fettling has to be done, and then we can try her out. If the weather gods are kind we will have winds like today: 1 to 2 meters a second, just enough to raise a ripple. Which should not make for water skiing behind the boat, but will allow us to work out placement for cleats, sheelt attachments and -leads, and in general to see if things work.

If you do not receive a further blog, you'll know she capsized, she sailed with the blunt end first, and we died of shame, or we got lost and are on our way to Brazil.