-----
Aborted Launch Continued.... aka "It was for the best"
-----
After we realized that launching that day wasn't possible, given the amount of daylight left, and the problem of getting access to the docks, we decided that we would simply sleep on the boat as planned, albeit on the trailer. Launching could wait for the next day.
We fired up the alcohol stove and made some tea, then chose the table/bunk for our first night onboard. The table/bunk area was decently comfortable, if a bit skinny in width. The alcohol stove did it's job perfectly. Using it in the reconfigured location, was hands on proof of the advantage of forum member "Watercolors" galley design, over the oem setup.
In the morning, after breakfast, we gave the boat a pre-launch once over.
At that point we had raised the mast a few times, but that was before we had received our new mainsail from Precision Sails. In addition, we had never mounted the jib on the CDI furler.
With this in mind, and because we were in a location where there was nothing to prevent us from raising the mast, we decided to quickly raise the mast and check things out.
The new custom mainsail fit perfectly, from what we could tell. Of course, a complete assessment would require actual use, with the battens installed.
New Mainsail
The existing jib+furler was a different story...
With all the projects I was doing over the summer, I never took time to fully investigate how the sail was hoisted on the furler.
What I saw on the boat didn't make sense, but I had only skimmed the CDI manual previously.
I assumed that it was fully functional, because the previous owners had it installed, and had used it last year. You know what they say about ass-u-ming ?
In essence....
The furler's extrusion has a slot on both sides.
The jib's luff tape slides into the rear slot, though a gate, just like mainsail on the mast.
A halyard made from 2 pieces of line, runs externally up to the top of the forestay, through a sheave/pulley, then back down to the deck inside the front of the extrusion.
Once the jib is fully hoisted, the messenger/second piece of line is removed and the remaining halyard piece is secured to the furling drum.
Bloody simple right ?
Why did the system initially not make sense to me ?
BECAUSE IT WAS ASSEMBLED WRONG BY THE PREVIOUS OWNERS' BOATYARD STAFF
The sheave at the top was on backwards, and the halyard line was fed into the wrong side of the extrusion.
Because the halyard was non-functional as assembled, the only way they could have put the jib on, was to mount it on the furler, before the the mast was raised.
We dropped the mast, disassembled+reassembled the furler as per CDI's user manual and raised the mast again.
Now that it was assembled correctly, the jib hoisted easily, and the furler worked as designed.
With mast still up we decided to test the pop top cover.
It worked great. It fit tightly, but not so tight that we had to struggle to do the snaps up like some C22 owners have reported.
So we had tested both sails, and we were finally 100% ready to tow the boat to the launch and spend a nice warm day out on the water.....
Woah ! Not so fast there, pardner !
You see.. we were using a 6ft stepladder to get on+off+on+off+on all weekend.
We had been using the ladder all summer without a problem.
This time the trailer was sitting on uneven ground and the ladder was leaning ever so slightly away from the boat.
My wife, with one hand on the boat, and one on the ladder, as required, had the ladder go sideways. She was unable to pull the ladder back, and the ladder toppled with her jumping the last 3 feet to the ground.
Unfortunately she landed flat footed without absorbing the shock with her legs.
So.. now she was limping... had sprained her knee... and launching the boat was cancelled.
Edit: I forgot to mention the light at the end of the tunnel.
On the way back from the lake, we stopped at another tiny harbour which we were told about but had never seen.
While I was checking out the ramp, my wife was checking out the docks:
Me: "I think this ramp will work perfectly !"
Wife: "I know it will work perfectly !"
Me: "How would you know that ?"
Wife: "There a Catalina 22 over here !"
It's 1 hour away from our house, has direct access to the lake, and the launching and berthing prices are great ! :-D
In the end, the weekend was productive and not a total loss by any measure.
The only bad part of the weekend, was my wife being injured.
Hopefully someone can take a few lessons from this story.
Cheers,
Roy
P.S. This leads to my next post, which covers my building a new land boarding ladder for the boat....