A perfect first sailing this year

After all the work, I needed that

• 20°C sun, with nearly no clouds on the sky
• a fresh breeze around 12kn of wind
• a new mainsail

•  a visit from a whale

• and so a happy wife

And of course a good boat speed ;-)

Puuuhhh .......Refit done !!!!

Yeah you already noticed spring is there, the temperatures are rising, the sun is shining etc.....

So with this fine weather I was able to finish the refit of Geronimo. So the working list was long......

• hull repainted 3 times
• Deck repainted 2 times
• New war paint ;-)

• Adding new hand bars on the foredeck
•  Pantry repainted
• New fock sliders on the foredeck
• New genua sliders at the foredeck
• New genua winches (Antal Size 8)
• New hinges
• New wood floor in the main cabin

And a new main sail.

What´s missing an engine inspection.

gear test: Bosch PMF 250 CES

During the refit of Geronimo this year, I use quite often the Bosch Mulittool PMF 250 CES and I love it.

I first stumbled over the Multitools at my work, and I found them quite handy. So my christmas present was the Bosch PMF 250 CES.

So what can you do with this nasty device ?

• Cutting wood, metal and stone
• grinding
• scrabbing
• milling

The great advantage of this cutting method is that the crisps do not fly half a mile away, like when you use a angle grinder. So if you cut a bolt with an angle grinder you normallly have some burnt marks or flush rust. I don´t except flush rust with a multitool.
In my opinion , you also have much more controll with these tool than with an angle grinder or jig saw.

So during this year refit of Geronimo I have grinded a lot with it and I even cut stainless steel bolts with it, without leaving any marks on deck.

 Simply set the cutting tool on deck and cut with low pressure the bolt away, easy and nearly clean work.

So in my opinion a clearly must have device, if you do a refit.

Is it spring......???

Well the winter is still there. Geronimo is still waiting for her new paintshop. I have grinded the whole deck and the hull, last saturday in a small snow blizzard, with windspeeds around 25 knots, quite nice. But with temperatures around 0°C up tp 5°C, a paintshop isn´t possible.
I also helped my Dad to bring his boat back in the water. I love "Do It"´s engine, for her size it is a little bit oversized, but you can stop and accelerate her in no time, a very big feature in strong winds. So she is big in her element and Geronimo...... waiting for spring.......

It´s been a while

So it´s been a while since my last post. Quite busy, big project at work, a lot of travelling ..... won´t complain.
But in the meantime I made this year shopping list for Geronimo, and the holiday sailing planing.

Shopping list, well it´s long and damm expensive, as my wife said

Well the " To Do List" has also some benefits:

•  hull painting (some idiot ramed Geronimo and left his marks on her, without leaving a note, bloody idiot)
• deck painting (well I´m not quite happy with the International Perfection paint. After 2 years the paint is wearing off, maybe my pre work was not that good)  
• removal of all deck gear ( for painting) 
• repaint of the pantry
• remount all of the deck gear (after painting)

Trip planing
We want to sail to Poole this year, so I started with the preplaning. You know take the bible, look at the ports, possible points of refugee and the distances. As a preplaning tool I find Google Earth not bad. You can get the distance quite fast, get an idea of possible sand banks, harbour entries and stuff like that.

But now it is going down to my loved chart work and tides

self steering wind vane

Well, over the christmas holidays I was able to do a lot of work at the windvane.
I changed a lot of the orginal design. The carrier of the rudder is built complete out of an aluminium profile by item.

The base for the windvane is built out of an old bath platform which was mounted at Geroimo over a decade ago. To this platform I took an aluminum angle to which the rudder carrier will be mounted.

For a better flexibility, I choose to build a wind vane carrier where you can adjust the angle of the wind vane. So I should be able to let the wind vane steer at any wind strengh.

I built all the parts by myself, and nearly blow up my drilling machine. But up to now I´m quite happy with it.

So what´s missing ?

•  
• The bolt to fix the rudder carrier and the base platform together
• the transmission shaft from the wind fane to the rudder
• the wind vane
• and of course the mast 

Link: self build wind vane

gear test: rope clutches

The rope clutches have created quite a revolution in the world of sailing gear. They can take quite a load, they are easy to handle and by now there are different suppliers, so prices are coming down. Mostly, they are used for the halyards or reefing ropes.

By now I have two generations of Lewmar rope clutches and one set by Spinlock. I use them for the sails and for the reefs. One old Lewmar rope clutch I use for the tension of the backstay.
They work perfectly, although the older Lewmar ones, which are nearly 15 years old. The old ones are starting to show their age and nearing the end of their useful lifetimes. The levers to open them no longer stay open, so you have to put them down manually and hold them down. But this is after a long life... 
The Spinlock and the Lewmar have two different holding down designs for the ropes. 

The Spinlock uses one bracket to hold down the rope, upper picture. The Lewmar ones have 6 to 8, picture below. There are technical discussions in every yachting magazine or forums about them. I don´t wanna start another one.

But there is two key reasons why I prefer the Spinlock design. 

1. Every spring I fiddle the ropes through them. And there is the difference. The Spinlock just has one clamp to hold down the rope, the Lewmar 6.  So it takes some time to get the rope through it.
2. Simple maintance. With just one clamp the maintance is quite easy.

 

As mentioned before there are many tests in magazines and forums where the holding strength and damage to ropes is discussed, here are some of them.

PBO June 2012 issue 
YBW Forum 
Sailnet

Honestly,  I can´t see any reason to complain about the different methods for holding down the rope.

I never recognized slip of the rope or any heavy damage to the rope. So I think it is all about a peronal opinion of the yacht owner.

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