My last sail of the season turned out to be my last sail for a few different reasons but, like most sails, it seems that I walked away with a few repairs needing to be done.

While we were tacking, the foresail got away from the crew a bit and out of the corner of my eye I saw something appear to fall out of the sky and bounce on the deck. I had someone else grab the wheel quickly and I went forward to see what was going on. Turned out that the cover for the steaming light had been knocked loose and brought the bulb with it. Glad that didn’t make its way overboard!

The cover was salvageable, but I needed a new light. After checking my BoatProject tasks I realized I hadn’t recorded the light model or bulb model so I needed to do some research. The exceedingly helpful people at Batteries+ were able to help me locate the right bulb and now I am recording it in BoatProject so I know what to purchase again. Realistically, I want to always keep at least one on board moving forward.

To replace the bulb meant going up the mast, a first for me! I have a bosun’s chair but given that I have a healthy respect for heights, a friend recommended using a climbing harness. Luckily, I had one of those at home. While up the mast, I was able to replace the bulb and test that it worked while I was up there. I then replaced the cover, and added a healthy dose of duct tape to increase the odds of it staying on. Lastly, I took some pictures of the spreader light. I have some new sockets to repair the spreader light when the boat goes back in the water but I figured I’d grab a few extra pictures while I was there so I could load them into the BoatProject task in case other questions came up over the off season.

Overall, a successful day! Mostly, because even after threats were made, my friends let me come back down from my precarious position.