Sail Number 2

La Paz, BCS, Mexico

The battle continues, after a congratulatory night out at Tony's, our favorite pizza place in La Paz.

Today we tackled the main sail.  This promised to be the most difficult for us to deal with, and it did not disappoint.

To be honest, outside of getting it out of the back cabin and onto the dock, it was not the sail itself that caused any problem, instead it was the horribly complicated sail cover that was the big challenge.  For the sail, we simply had to lay it out on the dock, insert the battens and then hoist it up the mast - pretty straight forward.  But first, the sail cover has to go on, threaded along the slot in the top of the boom, then inserting the stainless steel rods that give it some structure and then leaving it hanging there until the sail is ready to come down.  This all takes time and the longer we wait to put up the sail, the higher the chances that the wind will come up and make the job impossible - that is why we start these projects early in the morning when it is usually dead calm here.

Once the sail was completely attached and fully raised, we worked on attaching the lazy-jacks to the sail cover, a complicated task of guesswork as to where to tie on the various lines (I should have made better notes when we took it off).  After considerable trial and error, we were ready to let the sail down into the sail cover.  Of course, this is when the wind started to freshen up, coming directly abeam and making the sail billow out to the port side of the boat, getting caught in the lines for the lazy jacks and generally confirming why we always turn the boat into the wind to take the sail down - not really an option in the marina.

After another hour or so of fighting with the sail and cover and a lot of re-adjusting everything, it was basically done.  It still needs a little more tweaking to get the cover in exactly the right place, and I still have to rig the reefing lines, but I think the hard part is over.  Note: These are the types of projects that can really test relationships.

And as for the wind, it was probably associated with some cloud cover we got today.  Just so you don't think it is perfect all of the time here, look at those clouds in the sky.  On the other hand, the clouds just mean we get a little shade now and then, and the wind makes the heat much more bearable - we are certainly not complaining.

The wind and sun sure do wreak havoc on courtesy flags.

Oh, and the dock line inspector showed up today.  Sure hope we passed!

{GMST}24|9.3066|N|110|19.6068|W|La Paz, BCS, Mexico|La Paz, BCS, Mexico{GEND}