Shakedown Cruise
Posted: Thu Aug 23, 2012 2:32 pm
My maiden voyage. Finally after 10 months of ownership I got to sail my keel-stepped mast, DS1 “Quiksilver” (not my name) last Saturday on the edge of Lake Erie. What an ordeal! After rigging and launching we had to recover and de-rig when we discovered that we lost the end of the main halyard up into the base of the mast! We removed the mast base and could not see the halyard even with a flashlight. We slowly pulled the jib halyard, spinnaker halyard, and spinnaker topping lift line through the mast while we pushed the mail halyard wire into the mast from the top. Eventually we were able to snag the errant halyard. The knot in the end of the line had pulled through the sheave at the base of the mast. The whole ordeal took about 1 ½ hours.
OK so now we are back on the water and the mail sail won’t raise all the way up. It seems to be about 3 inches from the top. It turns out that the wire loop at the end of the wire part of the halyard had come off the sheave and was stuck along side of the sheave. We didn’t figure out what was wrong until later when we returned to land and couldn’t drop the main. In the meantime we sailed with a Cunningham kind of set up to tighten the luff.
OMG, That boat is fast!! We had a wonderful hour-and-a-half sail. I’m looking forward to much more sailing before the weather turns too bad. We are taking the boat to the Chautauqua Institute for a weeks vacation the first week of September. But first I have to figure out why the halyard connection wire is getting caught between the sheaves.
If anyone has any ideas…
OK so now we are back on the water and the mail sail won’t raise all the way up. It seems to be about 3 inches from the top. It turns out that the wire loop at the end of the wire part of the halyard had come off the sheave and was stuck along side of the sheave. We didn’t figure out what was wrong until later when we returned to land and couldn’t drop the main. In the meantime we sailed with a Cunningham kind of set up to tighten the luff.
OMG, That boat is fast!! We had a wonderful hour-and-a-half sail. I’m looking forward to much more sailing before the weather turns too bad. We are taking the boat to the Chautauqua Institute for a weeks vacation the first week of September. But first I have to figure out why the halyard connection wire is getting caught between the sheaves.
If anyone has any ideas…