Things are getting done

You've discovered by now that as a blogger... I suck. Fact is we have been getting a lot done and this last Wednesday we came in from our fifth sea trial aboard Avelinda having finally worked out the sheeting arrangement for the mainsail which has been plaguing us with poorly setting lower panels. Following the previous sail Nancy suggested that the only difference from the mizzen, which was setting perfect,  and the main was that we ran the sheet back up to the end of the boom in order to take it forward and bring it into the front of the cockpit. The more I thought about it the more it made since that the problem lay there so I attached a block to the end of the mainsail boom and another to the lower sheet block and back into the cockpit. Off we went again to sea and sure enough the problem was resolved. Below you will find some videos of that last sail were everything was working perfectly, even the auto pilot. Enjoy!

In the following video taken from the lee side you can see how nice the leech of the mainsail, the forward one, sets now. before the lower 3 panels were completely scalloped and baggie.

In this next video we have turned around about 15 miles offshore and headed back in, we were then able to ease the sheets and the speed jumped up to between 7.5 and 8.5 kts.

Next we are arriving back at the St. Augustine sea buoy while still doing about 8 kts.

Finally here we are inside the inlet and turning into Salt Run where Avelinda is moored.