18 January 2009 - first sail of the season

9 nautical miles

This is the first sail of the year. Yesterday I fitted new shrouds to Galini and Tim fitted a bow plate to enable him to re-fit the furling drum to his trimaran, and then he suggested we went out for a sail today. Since the weather looked good... we went.

I know for hardy English sailors who wear wetsuits et al, Cyprus winter is just like English summer... but for us its quite cold. I'm even wearing a sweatshirt and Tim wished he had worn one!

The sailing was great and Galini looks much nicer with her new shrouds. The old shrouds had thin electrical ducting around them to protect the sails, but the new ones have clear plastic tube and it looks much better. This being Cyprus... the chandler didn't sell the 3mm stainless steel wire, but did to the ends. So I bought the wire and tubing elsewhere and took it to him for fixing. He was not impressed with the idea, saying he had tried before and it was impossible to thread 3mm wire through tube like that. So... I squirted WD40 into the tube and let it run the whole length as a lubricant and than the wire went in easily. The chandler was amazed.

We sailed down to Dhekelia and and back. Dhekelia club had a few boats out but we arrived just about lunch time and they were heading in for a bit to eat just as we arrived. It was interesting how the trimaran and the Wayfarer were fairly evenly matched in these conditions.

The sailing was wonderful. About 5 knots all the way out and back. On the way back the main sheet block broke away from the centreboard case so much of the time I was holding the mainsheet just in my hand. It wasn't very blowy but my arm ached by the end of it!