Sqoop: a square-rigged sloop

  The day of reckoning has arrived.  It’s time to see if all the planning, fabricating, re-rigging, etc. has paid off.  Today’s objective:  sail  Sqoop  upwind as a fore-and-aft rigged vessel, then convert on the water to a square-rigged vessel and sail downwind using her full-sized square sail.  First, I secured the yard-spar in place with the braces, then attached it to the batt-car/t-track assembly using a soft shackle: Next, I attached the center of the square sail’s head to the yard-spar and attached the sheets and tacklines (foreguys) to the sail’s clews.  After making sure the sail wasn’t twisted, I shoved it all into a home-sewn sail bag for temporary storage.  The outer corners of the sail’s head (earrings) will be attached to the yardarms just before hoisting. My first mate and I shoved off and motored out of the marina, heading into the wind: We raised the mainsail, unfurled the Genoa and beat upwind for an hour on a close reach; what a glorious day to be on the water!  We t

  Once she was pressure washed and on the hard, I could for the first time get a good look at the hull below the waterline.  When I had dove on the boat the previous summer to give it a scrub, I found just a light film of green algae which came off fairly easily.  To me this said the anti-fouling paint was still doing it’s job, although I did notice a few random places where the paint had flaked off. I was hopeful that  a few hours of prep work and a new coat of paint would make everything hunky dory.  My service advisor agreed and started the prep work.  A couple days later, he called with the bad news that more chunks of paint were coming off as he worked due to a previous layer of barrier coat not adhering correctly to the copper coat below.  He recommended removing all the old layers of paint down to the gel coat and starting over from scratch.  With just a slight hesitation (my previous cost estimate would be out the door due to a huge increase in labor expense), I agreed.  Here’s