Good Ideas

I get some myself. My best design work seems to take place at 60 mph driving to the boat (yeah I know, kinda slow; as my youngest son says, "Dad, your just not left lane material".) Other great ideas emanate from various googled websites. And then there is the archived emails electronically filed in the BCC owners website, Roger Olsen's book, "Practical Sailor", "Wooden Boat", "Classic Boat", "Hand Reef and Steer"......and on and on. Too often I celebrate the discovery of the elegant and yet simple solution to my very dilemma only to forget the details the following week; and even more maddeningly, I forget the location of my original discovery and am thus forced to re-google the topic. This time it's my wife who offers the simple if not so elegant solution to the retention problem..... "Write it down". Fine! I will write them down (another list). Here are a few of the good ideas, and solutions I have come across recently:

Bending on the Trysail........run a wire line from the mastband at the hounds to a turnbuckle attached to the main deck or the fife rail. Hank the trysail to the taut wire line and keep the sail tied off to the base of the mast.....especially interesting for gaff rigged vessels.

Man overboard maneuvering options most often discussed include the quickstop, figure eight and tack gybe and return. You're shorthanded, reaching during daylight hours. Head straight up into the wind, complete the tack but do not release the foresails i. e. Heave To. Launch the dinghy on the lee side and go get your MOB. Would have to be practiced but could be your best shot at successful recovery in certain conditions.

This one from Colin Speedie... "The addition of the Wichard Gyb’Easy has been a great success, slowing the boom effectively on its “slackest” setting, working as a preventer on its tightest—we really like it." A crash gybe with a heavy solid boom and running backstays would likely fall into the catastrophic event category so a self tending preventer makes good sense.

Same source in the "keep the water out of the boat" category. Put effective seals around lazarette and hatches. Seems obvious but worth another "note to self" based on the recent lesson in downflooding provided by Ike. Per Mr. Speedie, "We experimented with a couple of different mouldings before finding one that was perfect for our needs. We then sourced some much more robust and effective locker lid clamps that hold the lids down tight on the seals. As we have no watertight bulkhead aft, any water that could get into the cockpit lockers would find its way to the bilges pretty soon, so we’re glad we’ve cured that."