You all have made my sailing more enjoyable

[Tom]

and cheaper too!I appreciate the suggestions everyone has offered regarding my full batten/sail cover/furling main/quality control issues. By reading and trying your suggestions I have avoided some costly mistakes and enjoyed my sailing more.Regarding the sail slugs getting stuck, I have found that if I VERY carefully watch the sail until it is absoultely dead into the wind before I release the halyard, then the sail drops like a rock - just as several of you have suggested. Tough to singlehand that way but sailing with partners is more fun anyway.I still hate the lazy jacks and the sail cover but I suppose I can live with them for this season and then refit with a Dutchman and new cover next year.If anyone is near Chicago, drop me a line and I'll show you how the 320 sails. It smokes - and I'm not referring to the yanmar!tom.parrent@abnamro.com

 

[Guest]

Still waiting for the lemonade

Ah the glorio8s day I took The Breath Of Life into the chop on SF bay.Blowing 18 knots, 4.8 Ebb and screaming across the chute at 6.2. Imagine my joy when I launched my first leeward fairlead. Three flips,two and a half twist and inverted something looking like a demented Sawkow. I had launched my first fairlead. My chest swelled with with pride. Not every new 320 owner can claim that. Well I won the idiot award for jurry-rigging and fashioned an asymmetric of sorts and found my way back home.

 

[Guest]

More still

Not to be outdone by the aerial aquatic acrobatics of the fairlead, I had the unbridled ecstacy akin to passing a bowling ball when the worst sail cover concept I have ever seen predictably tore at the egress of the reefing lines AND the almighty headsail furler felt conspicoulsy generous and thus furled the lead lines and sheets but ceratinly not the sail. That needed to be done at the foredeck while dancing the Bay Bolera , as we call it . Of course I could have either never manually unrolled the Jib in the first place but I grow misty eyed thinking how I would have missed the envious smiles of the Beneteau bozo's and Jenneau jerks as they empathized with my plight at sea.Oh yes there is more. While investigationg a whooss and crash from he cabin I challenged Dwight Stones american high jump record when the hook and loop closure in the helm leaf blew and blocked my passage. Once again I was overcome with a certain sense of perverse pride to discover two cabintes had blown their locking mechanism and shot across the cabin. One successfully launched a number of pointed missile ( some call them knives) and impaled the head door. The USAF and NORAD are studying my technique.

 

[Guest]

The final blow

Undaunted, I took my bearings using my trusty wind point wind speed and discoverred that I was truly blessed indeed. Normally one would need at least a few tacks to get home but I was assured by my instruments that irrespective of the sense GOD gave me and anything else affected by wind, I had 14 knots at 40 degrees starboard all the way in. No, it was not guano on the vane-poor installation. Hunter was so cute when we had our first little chat...oh yes,ha ha , these things happen with boats.Yes, they are fixing everything and yes, other than the clearly poorly planned sail cover and the difficulty with a boom 6'8 off the cockpit floor-that is as low as you can get it. (I am 6'3")-the boat is the best buy for the money. The real bottom line is that Dr. Deming et al, should be resurrected and take on the yacht industry. They are not adept at fit and finish and quality control. Clearly below the standards of the auto industry. Well, have to run-got a cryptic message about a bay bass in the bilge. What next! By the way, it would be invaluable for Hunter to regularly read these postings.

 

[Greg Stebbins]

What ever it is.....

If it'll fit in a bottle or box, mail me some please!(-: (I'm impressed)Greg