Wonderstruck has a new jib and new main! Yay! They were shipped to our friend’s house in Key West. First Kim and I installed the new jib. It went up without a problem. We also have a new roller furling and it took us several tries to get the line on it correct, but overall not a bad job.
Our friend, Benito, flew in from Mexico to join us on our crossing. He was there to help us install the new main, and good thing because that thing was a beast!
To install the main we needed to be facing the wind. So, we took the boat out off the coast of Key West and first tried to motor into the wind, but there wasn’t enough room with all the shallows. So then we tried to anchor so we would be facing the wind. However the current was so strong it kept turning us so that the wind was directly abeam— which makes the sail too hard to handle. So I had to be at the helm with the engines on turning the boat into the wind while Kim and Benito tried to install the sail. We had to use two different size allen wrenches to secure the sail into each car as it went up the mast. Then we put the battens (fiberglass rods) in the sail. After spending several hours installing the sail, the battens, and the reefing lines we raised it all the way up and saw this!
The battens were getting caught in the diamond rigging and the spreaders. We definitely did something wrong. So we dropped the sail, uninstalled the whole thing, and went back to the dock. Feeling hot and thirsty and tired and frustrated Kim, Benito, and I called it a night and went and had a great pity-party over oysters and beer.
The next day we contacted our sail manufacturer who said that we were supposed to remove the old hardware from the old sail and put it on the new sail. We spent all morning trying to remove all the cars that hold the battens from the old sail and reinstall them on the new one. But we didn’t have the right tools or the room really to work with it. Its hard to deal with two huge mainsails while on a narrow dock. So we called a local sailmaker (on a Friday afternoon) and we were in luck! He said to bring them on down right now and he would take care of this. We then had to load two large mainsails, several battens (the longest being 16 feet) into my friend’s Honda Pilot and drove them to Stock Island. There was hardly any room for the people once the sails were loaded, but we’re close friends and made it work.
Once we got all the hardware on the new sails we then reloaded everything back in the Honda Pilot and drove back to the marina where Kim and Benito spent the next several hours installing the main… car by car by car. It is hard, heavy, tedious work requiring uncomfortable body contortions and once frustration after another. Benito was up on the boom doing the hardest part. It got dark while they were working, but thankfully they were able to get it on using the deck and spreader lights.
Now we are ready for Mexico! Vámonos!
Reading this exhausts me! So heavy and so frustrating!
On to further blogs I guess, so you are not left wrestling with the old sail/new sail!