Sailing

A couple of the latest sailing trips, short trips out into the Bass strait while i am slowly getting confidence that the new rudder wont fail me.

Mainsail Halyard replacement

The mast has not come down since we launched the boat almost four months ago. So when my mainsail halyard came loose in a storm and went up through the block on top of the mast i was literally about to do my first mast lowering (when the weather improved) and being on the water we needed real calm conditions.
Once again i had a good instructor, Mike from the Wynyard Yacht club to help me lower the mast and replace the halyard.

 The 33 year old rope wire halyard is now replaced with a 2mm thicker all rope halyard.

Rudder drama

The rudder 2 months ago split in half,

This left me without a rudder for a month while with some help from the local mens shed and a whole lot of West Systems expoxy applied i made a new rudder, this time i put a bull nose on front of it and a more gradual but longer slope towards the rear.

On the base i put 5 coats of expoxy, fiberglass and polyurethane coat over the top. The logic of the white polyurethane coat is to A. show me if a split is starting and B. it is soft, like rubber so gives a little amount of protection if we run aground.

The new rudder has done 20 hours so far on the water with no issues so far

Fishing

SV Christina is turning into one great fishing vessel, now all it needs is one great fisherman on the boat. I have managed to loose more gear over the side of the boat than fish i have caught but here are some pictures from the past three months fishing.