26 February 2012

let's go fly a kite...

Another first today.

Finally, the moment arrived to try out the spinnaker. It's something as a dinghy sailor I've never had to do. All of my dinghies have been really simple things, just a small main sail, or a main sail and a foresail. Nothing more complicated than that.

It was first mooted at the end of last year so I dug under my bed in the forepeak and found the huge bag of magical mystery material. I pulled it all out for inspection in the comfort of a warm club house. the whole thing was packed nicely, pulled out again, packed nicely again and then stashed away back under my bed.
The plan to go out with it between 25th and 31st of December never came to fruition, tides all awkward to get out of the marina and then strong winds set it back.

But then it all came together today, after a furious 1 hour of tidying below to make it safe, the engine started nicely after 3 months of sleeping and the small can of spray oil made slippy all the moving parts of the spinnaker pole.

Spray hood down... chug out of the marina for the fist time since December and what a fabulous day!




and my best friend came along for the ride to show off her catalogue pose.


all in all, a successful first go at flying a boat-kite.

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