Author Topic:   !st episode of Tom's Sailing week Tom D CL16 Member posted September 07, 2002 10:23 PM             Saturday we traveled north to the cottage we rented with 3 other couples. The cottage is on a 17,000 acre lake connected to a similar sized lake by a winding river channeled through the swamps and woods 45 minutes by boat at nowake speed. We arrived in the early afternoon and after unloading the truck and unloading my canoe and the plywood D4 dinghy we headed to the boat ramp. The ramp is 2 miles down the shore line from the cottage. SUPER RIGGER STRIKES BACK. I, having set up all the rigging including the spinnaker sheet/guy and halyard was ready to launch. This was done at home and checked carefully several days before the journey. Kevin my Newfy friend (this reference is used only to blame someone other than myself) was there to assist and return the truck and trailer to the cottage. We raised the mast with no problems. Trying to set and raise the jib we found that the jib halyard line was attached to the cable foreward of the block which prevented raising the jib. Down came the mast. Reconnected the line to the cable and reraised the mast. @#$!@$!@$ guess what some dummy connected it the same way as before. The jib would not raise. We lowered the mast THREE(3) times before we could get it right. I told Kevin it must be the Newfy influence. He didn't agree. Four times I set the halyard incorrectly, wow what a dummy. I was made to promise to no longer tell Newfy jokes. Anyway back to sailing after an hour of #$@$#$% with the jib halyard. I sailed back to the cottage solo. The wind near a constant 15 MPH. Sailing was great, I didn't use the GPS but I was able to solo tack in an 80' angle with no problem. I wandered around for about 2 hours and had a great time. Hopefully Newfy forgot about the problem with the jib halyard and didn't tell anyone. When I got to the cottage no one was at the dock to greet me. I landed and secured KatieAnn. Getting up to the cottage I was not greeted with any disdain, HA HA the newfy forgot to tell them. BUT I had to explain why it took so long to launch because Kevin was blamed for going to the local pub because of being gone so long. I confessed I caused the problem all by myself. I am now qualified to be the "stupid rigger" as designated by the group. The rest of the week was less eventfull and I will add episodes tomorrow. We had some questionable sailing weather and forced group activities that did not include sailing. A 17,300+ acre lake has a lot of water surface and eventually I plan to cover most of it with KatieAnn. I have covered about the lower half in two years. Hopefully my reference to "Newfy" does not offend anyone, I have no intentions of doing so. Kevin and I have been good friends for over 30 years. Tom D ------------------

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