Well guys,
We made another attempt to take the boat out this afternoon. Before I did I took a delrin pulley I machined on my lathe awhile back for another project and fabbed up some steel brackets and tig welded them to the trailer vertical support for the mast when you are trailering the boat. I welded it as high as I could get it without interfering with the mast. When we got to the boat launch today we parked the van on a very slight hill, then I unclamped the mast and positioned it over the little ball on the forward crossbar. Next we tidied up the wiring for the stanchions and the trapeze and whatnot and got ready to raise the mast. Then I took the same hook and line that I use to pull the boat onto the trailer coming from the winch and passed it over that top pulley I made and then put it thru the forestay eyelet. Then I had my wife crank the winch while I steadied the mast as it riased it. It was so freakin' easy to do it is not funny... I am amazed at how well this worked to both raise and lower the mast. Once it was near taught on the stanchions I held it in place while she removed the winch hook from the forestay eyelet and installed it onto the bridle. Raising the sail also went well with my repaired halyard cable for the mainsail and I think that waxing the groove also aided it.
We got out on the lake at around 6pm and there was not much wind at all but we were still able to get around easily and the kids had a blast jumping off the boat and swimming in the middle of the lake. We made it back just before it got dark and as I said lowering the mast was made super easy due to the new pulley and winch setup. We were also able to figure out how to rig the mast straightener setup and it worked great.
We had so much fun out on the boat that I cannot wait for the next day with some nice sunshine and SOME WIND!!
Anyone have thoughts about the wing seats for the Nacra 5.2? I am seriously interested in making some of these things and I am anxious to get the hulls repainted. I have a good friend who does sign work and I think I can get him to make me some cool Nacra decals for the hulls and I am gonna try to get the sails to look a little whiter and then maybe attempt some sort of graphics on it. Any suggestions on how to do that guys... Peace
Pete