When life imitates art ...
After living without a mainsail for a few months (to allow rigging the square sail), I reattached the gooseneck, the boom & mainsheet, and rehung the mainsail. I did this to see if she could sail with a truly loose-footed mainsail from the first reef point. I attached the first-reef tack cringle to the mast (about a foot above the gooseneck) and attached the first-reef clew cringle to a sheet that ran to block on the corner of the stern and then forward to the unused winch. Tacking is a challenge since the sheet has to be rerigged through the block on the stern’s opposite corner but that could be solved by attaching an additional sheet to the clew cringle; much like the foresail. Flying the main this way allows for the elimination of the boom, which I’d like to do eventually since it will avoid shading the future solar panels that will reside on the future Bimini cover. The sheet angle using this arrangement bisects the mainsail’s luff (good) and the sheet would stay clear of both the backstay and the aft edge of the Bimini cover (also good) but of course would limit how the mainsail could be trimmed (not so good). This also gets the foot of the mainsail up high enough that the future Bimini cover will allow standup headroom in the cockpit.
Since I once again had a fully-functioning sloop, I decided to take an overnight trip to Kirkland city marina. The journey up was uneventful and consisted mostly of motoring through the calm waters of Lake Washington with some friends aboard. I enjoyed an afternoon and evening exploring the downtown area and had takeaway Thai food dinner on the boat watching the sunset.
I had better wind on the journey home and was able to make a detour and sail past a friends’ home; they snapped a picture as I went by:
When I got home I noticed the similarity between the photo and a friend’s watercolor painting:
Both boats are sloops of about the same size, sailing left to right on a port tack. I was struck by the serendipity of the moment. This painting has been hanging in my living room for a few years now. I can’t help but think that it has been subconsciously inspiring and informing me as I’ve embarked on this journey of boat ownership. Vision :: Reality