dope of the day

[patch]

  just found out after 3 months of sailing my suncat has no battens in the sail.what is the procedure for buying battens and fitting them to my sail.

[Craig Weis]

Measure the three [?] pockets in the main sail and go over to West Marine and purchase some batton stock and cut to fit the pockets. Or call up Com-Pac and have theme send you a set of battons.

[Tom G.]

I would recommend buying enough batten material from West Marine or a local sailboat shop and cutting them yourself.  Mine were too short and fell out.  If they are the proper length then they won't fall out when the sail starts luffing wildly as it might in a blown tack or when gybing.

Tom G. (Seaweed)

[patch]

got my battens in,topped myself again.took the suncat out of the water.went to drop the mast pulled out the pin,pushed on the mast nothing wouldn't move,cussed and yelled. tried Dw40,nothing can drop the mast.guy walks by and says to me,try taking off the forestay.mast dropped right down.i dint think i am ready to sail the keys alone.

[Ralph Erickson]

Don't worry, Patch, you'll always have tales like this to tell, no matter how long you've been sailing.  I remember last year when I had my CP16, I brought her in close to shore.  The wind was blowing me in faster than I was comfortable with, so I started up the iron wind, and couldn't figure out why the shore was coming at me even faster.  Turns out I had put the engine in reverse instead of forward.  Before the stern hit the bank (which thankfully was mud) my glasses somehow flew off my face (probably from my arms flailing) into the lake.  Isn't it something how, at the time, it's not funny?  It's funny now!

Enjoy your mishaps!
Ralph

[patch]

how come when you sail close to perfect,come into your mooring like a pro,nobody is with you or watching.but when you blow it,smash into the dock and fall overboard.or drop the boom on your head,1/2 the world is there to watch you.

[Glenn Basore]

Patch,

I think we all have and will continue to go thru some embarrasing monuments in life,

later on we remember these monuments and they provide us a good laugh.

I recall an incident where my wife and I were having lunch with our sailing friends, they were talking about different mishaps they had while sailing or prepping their boats. We were asked about our mishaps, we looked at each other and I stated, we have no stories to tell other than a two hour rigging for our first sail.

That day we capsized our boat, we lost our valuables, keys to the cars, cash, our new boat was damaged by the Harbor Patrol as they tried to right her, breaking the mast. it was towed a mile back into the marina upside down.

We finally got the boat back on the trailer with the use of our Friends jeep. our friend pulling the boat out of the water ran over my wifes foot, luckily it was not broken. He then drove us to a car rental so we could rent a car to drive 75 miles home to get our spare key and return the next day to get our S-10 Blazer and the boat so we could bring everything home.

We had to wake our neighbors up at 11 pm so they could give us our spare key to get in our house.

I had to have my new car towed to the dealer to have new keys made for it as well as getting spare keys made for my blazer,get a new check book, drivers licenses and credit cards. and take a day off to do all this running around.

One should never take one self to serious and its all way good if we can laugh at our selfs.

We now have a story we can tell !

[patch]

 beat the bad weather,put my suncat to bed wed.up her in NH sailing is over,except for the die hards the windmill sailer's are still out racing every sunday.left the sail on the boom,wrapped it up with heavy mylar.took the rudder off.then covered the whole boat in a 20'by12' tarp.have it hidden from the wind between a large motor home other boats and trailers.still outside but isolated.passing up on the keys this year.cant drive the 1700 miles to the keys.the boats put away,i learned a lot from sailing,advise from this and other web sights.plus the guys from the yacht club.