Hi SandS,
It was absolutely......non existent!
The rains set in, and unusually stayed consistently light-medium-heavy, wind shifts all over the place. It wasn't getting wet that was the issue (within the first 10 minutes you were soaked, so after that it was a non issue), but some of the works needed just a leetle bit of dry weather that just wasn't going to happen.
What we did achieve:
- Got the boom on and the sheet/reefs/outhaul run.
- Up the mast and lazyjacks fitted. The boom is supported by the lazyjacks, no topping lift, and weirdly you set the boom height by these also. They're only 5mm dyneema, but you undo the one closest to the mast and haul, and the whole boom position moves up or down, set your height and then tie off accordingly.
- The mainsail lifted and installed into the boom bag and fitted to the cars. Every second batten receptacle is non solid, ie: they're connected to the mast car with a bungee cord! They're anchored to the mast car by a solid pin and grubscrew, and trying to loctite these things in the pouring rain was a mongrel of a job. The mainsail is impossible to lift by yourself, so it was a two man job just to lift it and slide it into the boom bag. Thank god it stays on the boom.
Too wet for pictures today, but earlier pics to show what I mean...the black ties are the lazyjack anchors.
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What we didn't achieve:
-Headsail fitted to furler. Antoine was hauling on the mainsail to try and get a batten receptacle to line up with a car, and as everything was soaking wet, his hand slipped and he centre-punched himself squarely in the nose. Blood everywhere, ice and towels, I fair dinkum thought he'd broken it, the hit was hard enough to almost knock him off the boat. That caused a temporary stoppage, it was getting dangerous to continue in those conditions, we were just asking for trouble.
The rain eased a little and back into it, but the weather was bad enough to slow us down, so attaching and furling the headsail is now a tomorrow am job.
- Checking and taping of all the split pins that connect the standing rigging.
- Final adjustment of the shrouds (more tension!!!)
- Soldering of the GPs antenna.
- Jacklines refitted and tensioned.
We will be on the water by noon tomorrow. It was frustrating to be so close, but our mantra is to not rush it, it would be stupid to cut a corner at the 11th hour.
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