More improvements and fixes

Since buying The Ripple in March, my list of "Boat Jobs" has been steadily growing, despite my best efforts complete some as I find new things (and yes, for those wondering, I DO have an elaborate Excel sheet keeping track of them all... This is me after all!)

So after finding myself in Vancouver over a long weekend (a somewhat rare occurrence for me), I decided to take advantage of the sunny weather on Sunday and tick a few key jobs off the list.

Awhile back, I bought myself 600 feet of 3/8th inch line and went about replacing just about all of the running rigging on board. One of the lines that I didn't replace though was the genoa furling brake line, which apparently has to be a 7/16th inch rope, according to the specs of my furler... 7/16th, aka 1/16th of inch larger than the my spool of brand new yacht braid. I emailed the company to see see if that 1/16th inch was all that important, and was told it was. Lovely.

My ratty old genoa line

Not replacing that exact line was particularly painful for me to deal with because it was pretty much in the worst shape of any of the old lines. Every time I'd go to my boat, it would stick out like a sore thumb to me. Pretty and shiny sheets... ugly and ratty genoa line. SO, in order to allow myself to sleep again at night (joking), I ordered another 60 feet of 7/16th yacht braid. 

Old vs. New

I've long felt that if you're going to fix something that's broken, you should try your best to make it better than it was before. So with that in mind, I decided to re-route my genoa line to the outside of the safety rail, so that it's not lying on deck where people could trip on it. 20 minutes of wrench work and I had all the blocks flipped around and ready to go. 

Feeding the new line through my furler

Lookin' good!

The final bit of the job is splicing the two ends of the line together to create an endless loop. As a total newbie to the world of splicing, I'm a bit intimidated by this job, regardless of how easy Youtube makes it seem. I'm planning to do a practice round with my extra 300 ft of 3/8th line before trying it for real.

I can sleep easier tonight knowing that ratty line is gone!

I also spent a bit of time hanging some metal hooks down below to hang a curtain by the head. Small boat means the head (aka toilet) is pretty, well, public. However, there was a heavy cloth curtain on board that seemed to be a cover for the hanging locker. A few drill holes later, and I've got a pretty effective "bathroom door", as well as a door to the v-berth. 

This week, I'm planning to replace two turning blocks for my genoa sheets that took a pretty good beating the last time out sailing. That should be a fun little job, as I have to fill some old bolt holes in the fiberglass with epoxy, and then re-drill for the new blocks. Once again, never done that before...

The old "to be replaced" turning block (also called a Cheek Block); note the pulley wheel is all worn out