Today, while inspecting the boat to see what work we may want to do during the upcoming cyclone season, I found a small crack....! The crack is in a small fitting called a toggle that holds the Selden Furlex Rolling furler to the Stem of the boat. In this photo, the fitting can barely be seen above Isobel's ankles.

Each time we prepare to sail a passage, one of the items on our two page pre-sail check list is a rigging inspection. This is when I look at every fitting that I can see, feel all of the shrouds for broken wires (a should is made up of many wires bundled together. If one wire breaks, the bundle will not feel even.) I also take my stabilized binoculars to inspect visually everything out of reach of the deck.

Every few months I go up the mast to inspect the rig up close.

So, this toggle was something that I looked at before we sailed from Kauehi Atoll. A complete failure would be a really bad thing! And we found it... and today I replaced it.

As an interesting note. We replaced all the standing rigging in 2009 before we left. A local rigger in VT helped me as I was not able to buy the rigging directly from Selden. This toggle was reused. He said, "It's perfectly good." Well, now it has been replaced! And I am not sure it was worth the $20 I saved 5 years ago for the risk. But, it does show that it is worth doing rigging inspections...

This photo is from our little passage from Kauehi to Tahiti. We had 15 to 20 knots directly behind us, so it was perfect weather for out "Twin Jib" which is slightly smaller than the Genoa, made out of nylon and mounted on our continuous line curler. It preformed really well... until the wind stopped blowing! Isobel found that when wet and on a rolling boat, the dinghy makes a great slide.