Cool new stuff

And a few miscellaneous observations

The latest splurge on Black Magic has been a new set of spinnaker sheets. We had one break on a heavy-wind day during the spring series regattas, and because the other one was likely to go soon as well, we had replaced them both temporarily with some random lines that we had available – very heavy, but better than nothing.

So this week, the line for our new sheets arrived: Flightline, which is a dyneema core with a polyester-blend sleeve. We got the quarter-inch size; it’s astonishingly slim, but still has greater strength than our really heavy temporary substitute line. We stripped the sheath off the first 14 feet of each sheet, to make them even lighter – what’s cool about these lines is that the core is actually colored too, so even when they’re stripped, they’re distinguishable from each other.

On the way to the marina, I noticed a couple of yucca plants in bloom near the head of the trail. I decided they were worth a picture.

Pat and Tadpole spent a lot of time working on the marina and on our dinghies this afternoon, while I went in to Chama to get groceries. We now have all five Sunfish in the water, as well as the Snark, although the boats still need a bit of work to get ready for the Boy Scout troop that’s coming soon from Texas to learn sailing. You can also see from the picture some of the work that’s been ongoing – salvageable pieces of the old A dock are being used to widen the walkway that connects A, B, and C docks together and create a better dinghy docking area. Pat and Tadpole have now moved four of the five Sunfish and also the world’s rattiest Snark to the new dinghy dock.

You can’t really tell from the picture, but this Snark has had a hard life. The original concept was for an inexpensive, fun boat made of Styrofoam. Some previous owner of this particular Snark decided to make it stronger by applying a fiberglass coating to it; unfortunately, the particular type of fiberglass resin that was used caused the Styrofoam to dissolve, leading to a strange sort of skin rash in which the boat was flaking apart. Subsequently, duct tape was used to try to hold everything together. That worked, sort of. Now, the raised portion of Styrofoam where the mast is mounted is decaying. Looks like time for more duct tape.

The weather this afternoon was threatening, with looming thunder clouds, and with lightning and thunder as well. We left the lake just as the rain was starting to fall. The rain moved on as night fell, and we had some awesome light conditions at Five O’Clock Somewhere, including a rainbow.