Splashing the boat is full of surprises!
After being delayed in splashing my friends boat (due to two boats in front of her taking their time to ready their boats), we finally got Relentless (Catalina 36 sloop) in the water. We walked through our "Splash" project to make sure we didn't forget anything and to ensure a safe sail to our summer slip.
Our sail was safe, our docking sloppy (my fault, totally, in handling the lines), and it felt good to be on the water. As we have only a few days to prepare the boat for our annual Memorial Day weekend sail, we proceeded to raising the sails.
The foresail went on no problem. And she looked great. Jackie had her sails and canvas serviced and cleaned and they did a great job. Raising the Mainsail was less stellar.
After pulling the mainsail out of the bag, finding the head and connecting it to the halyard, we proceeded to feed the slugs (or in this case, sliders) into the track. Last season, about 8 of the sliders broke when we gybed accidentally (at least I believe that is what happened). The company had replaced all the sliders with new, white, plastic ones (similar to what was there). As we put the sliders into the track, the slider base fit ie. the width; however, we quickly realized that the waist was too big. We couldn't get any sliders into the track except for the original sliders. Here is a picture of what you want to make sure you measure. BTW, an easy way to know the waist size is to put a drill bit in the slot and find the largest one that fits and the bit diameter is the waist measurement. You can see in the photo that the width of the slider fit, but not the waist. Just like my jeans lately....
That certainly put a damper on our splash. Fortunately, the sail shop apologized and said they could fix their mistake in a day so we can still sail this weekend. If you are in the Boston area, I would recommend them. Shoot me an email if you want their name.
So, we somehow folded the main on the deck of the boat and got it into the bag (rather neatly, too!). If you want to see the best and cleanest way to fold a sail, check out our video here: How to Fold a Sail. Anyway, as we started cleaning the boat we also found:
- Shower sump wiring is loose.
- Shower sump has a ton of mold in it. Eww.
- The hot water heater is leaking.
- We really don't understand the water tanks. We could not find the valve for selecting tanks.
So, we added these as tasks to BoatProject in the "Misc. 2023" project and included pictures for reference.
Outside of that, it was a pretty good splash and we got to check off a whole lot of tasks as "completed". If you are interested in that project template, search for "Splash" when you add a project from template.
Happy Boating and we hope to see you on the water!