I still need to work on the forestay and backstay, but those will have to wait for now. I also taped all the pins, but won't do the turnbuckles till I've sailed her and am satisfied she's properly tuned.
I finished mounting the new pad eye next to the mast for the main halyard turning block, as well as the fairlead at the base of the mast for the boom vang. I'll give the caulk a couple days to cure before tightening down the pad eye, then she'll be ready to start sailing.
The only problem I'm having now is figuring out how to setup the wind vane control lines. Besides moving them to the other side of the cockpit which will help unclutter things, I want to add a snap shackle I can trip from a line I'll trail behind the boat.
This is so I can disengage it if I happen to fall overboard. Otherwise, she'd just keep going. Boats tend to have weather helm, which means that if you let go of the tiller, she'll turn into the wind and stop. However, that's exactly what the wind vane prevents.
There are several ways to do it, but I wasn't happy with any of the ones I tried this afternoon. I hope I can come up with a good solution using the spare hardware I've already got on board. Otherwise, I'll need to make another trip to the marine supply store.
I guess that's not the end of the world. Other than swimming a few times with Zoe, I've only been off the boat once since I got here, and that was to pick up the fuel hose -- we've been here just over 2 weeks. And poor Zoe's only been swimming.
We aren't running low on food yet, but have run out of a few things, so I need to go to the grocery store pretty soon anyway. I'm planing on making a trip over to Huntington next week to get water, buy provisions, do laundry, and see a few friends, but I guess it wouldn't hurt to check out Oyster Bay as well.
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