Kaimusailing

I always take it that maybe I’m depressed when I stop cooking or photography. There is also the possibility of manic behavior in the kitchen or behind the camera. When I start picking images off the internet or saatchiart.com, which is also on the internet, and do not capture my own images, or when I begin eating peanut butter and jam sandwiches instead of cooking, I know I may be losing some of my creative drive. Others get there too and I notice they are talking to me about their problems and I can see they have lost their energy to create a solution. In my own case it is often an overwhelming realization of what I have to do, in total, and I must back off and break the big project down to a manageable smaller bit of work. Just do this and go on to the next step.
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I can still write and put out my record for later reference, and even if it is expressing a lack of energy to do what I have to do, I can read about it later and get back to work, hopefully with more energy.
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My recent writings about the America’s Cup competition have revealed my lack of knowledge about the rules, which are still kind of difficult for me to fully grasp. However, my energy is stoked up by this competition. The sailors are mostly young and aggressive winners, who have Olympic glory or national or international championships to their credit. The current America’s Cup boats are not what you would find down at your local boat rental. This is kind of like America’s Moon Shot 50 years or so ago, when very talented men went on to master new and unusual vehicles.
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In lieu of my secret recipes and candid photos of the North River Marsh, I will instead try to mix a 50:50 of morning work on the boat and afternoon America’s Cup involvement.
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Today I drilled two holes in the galley cabinet bulkheads to thread the SSB ground cable (the KISSB) through the starboard side of the dinette and galley. I was soaked with perspiration in only a few minutes. I concluded that work.
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Well, now I had to come up with some more work before the racing started, our time, at 1308. I took a trip to the local Winn-Dixey store and got bread, wine, and mentioned to the clerk that it was biblical, on Sunday, and she said, “For Sure”.
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I had also got a roll of quarters to do laundry, in a general purge of the starboard hull’s excessive accumulation of old clothing. This was mostly sweaters and long sweats that were needed just a few weeks ago. They sat in a pile that was very depressing to contemplate, but I left it till now, and now I was processing it all through the laundry while I watched America’s Cup competition.
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The plan was perfect, why try to work in the intense humidity when you could throw the laundry into the bin, hit the button, and then carefully observe the sailboat racing in Bermuda, only to organize a shift to the dryer during lapses between races. Was I off base?, yes, the USA feed for the races, NBCSN, was not showing them today, on Sunday, the first day of Louis Vuitton competition I finally found it on an English feed, but it was delayed due to light wind and consisted of replays of races I had already seen. They were great races and I watched and broke away from time to time to shift laundry to the dryer.
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The next day I woke to find the boatyard owner, manager, and chief crane operator (all one and the same person) poking around behind Kaimu. It looked like he was sizing up some more anti-arbor work, taking out more trees. I suggested he could make some room next to my boat by hoisting the mast and we could restep it. This worked in with his plans and he brought the crane over and soon we had the mast up off its sawhorses and vertical and up on the boat.
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First the upper shrouds, which are a fixed length, were attached, then the fore halyards were tied off on the two bridles and the bow crosstube. The bridles were adjusted to take out any kinks and make sure they were fully taut. Then, one by one, I tensioned the stays which were to be cut to length, terminated with swageless fittings, and pinned to their respective turnbuckle toggles. The headstay was terminated in a Norseman stud terminal which threaded directly into its turnbuckle.
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The Blue Wave terminals from Denmark turned out to be the simplest to put together. They recommended Sikaflex sealant inside the fitting. While the other fittings I had used, Norseman and Stay-Lok, required the outer layer of wire to be unlaid and then relaid around a cone that fits over the core wires, the Blue Wave fittings build right over the cable itself without having to unlay any of it.
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The only problem was a goof when I cut the starboard lower shroud at a mark on the wire close to where I had marked it and it turned out to be a bit short. The quick and easy remedy is to add another toggle to the stay to make up the length. Because the mast was not exactly vertical and the adjustment would be to lengthen the shrouds on the starboard side, having a short starboard shroud was a problem. Maybe I could swap the port and starboard lower shrouds, but first I had to measure them with a long tape measure from a halyard at the top of the mast. I knew I had made the uppers equal and the starboard upper was the one with lashings which could be let out to tip the mast back toward vertical. Perhaps the shorter starboard lower would fit better on the port side and vice versa.
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The next day I had come up with an idea to fix the short shroud problem and do it without spending 80 bucks or so for the large eye to jaw toggle that also would fix the problem. Or maybe not. I had to make up about 4 inches in the shroud so that the mast could stand perfectly vertical athwartships and with 4 degrees of rake. The expensive toggles seemed to be about 2 inches or so in length. My idea was to forget about the expensive toggles that were too short anyway, and make my own. DIY. I had a pile of turnbuckles with toggles that wrapped around
a large pin. I could drive out the pin with the boatyard’s 50 ton hydraulic press and also bend the strap straight. It would then be a straight piece of stainless steel with a hole in each end that perfectly fit the pins of the turnbuckles and swageless jaws I had used. I pressed out two of these straps and then used the pair as the “eye” pinned in the jaw at the end of the shroud, and then used the other end of the pair as a “jaw” to fit the eye of the turnbuckle. I had added a strong 4 inches or so back to the shroud without spending any money. I hope it works.
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It was a rainy day and a day to watch more of the Louis Vuitton competition. Previously Sir Ben Ainslie had broken a part in his boat and gave up two races to the Kiwi’s. The Japanese and Swedes sailed interesting races and each went away with a win. Now we had a new day with blustery conditions and racing postponed for bit due to excessive winds. The Swedes and Japanese were out their first, while the Kiwi’s retreated to their home base to replace their wingsail, uh oh. It is an involved operation to take the over 100 foot tall wingsail off the boat with a crane in 25 knot winds. Meanwhile the Swedish and Japanes boats sailed a brutal race which saw parts disappearing off the boats as the wind a waves tore at them. The Swedes lost their port foil control and had to give up. After the race, the boats looked like tatters and Dean Barker of the Japanese had a win. Then Sir Ben raced against the Kiwi’s and it looked like the Kiwi’s had everything under control, but the winds had lessened a bit. It looked like they would be in control in the moderate winds, then would get hit with a series of gusts that would put them out of control. Very exciting. Kiwi’s with another win. Then the Japanese and Swedes came out again and it was very much a non-race. The Swedes seemed to lose it at the first mark and did not bear off, sailed over the boundary, incurred a penalty which kept increasing the more they stayed out of bounds, plus they had trouble reducing their speed enough to wipe out the penalty. They soon were too far behind to have any chance at a win. Give another win to Dean Barker and the Japanese boat.
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It began to look like the Kiwi’s, who had a radical new way of grinding their winches with pedal power instead of arm strength, were able to cope with the high winds and the increased demands on the hydraulic controls. Control required both more effort and more rapid action. The other boats were obviously exhausted after their races, while the Kiwi’s were showing off at the end.
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It all came to grief in the last race with Sir Ben luffing the Kiwi’s up in the prestart, then bearing off for the line. It seemed like the Kiwi’s knew that they would reel him in, just like their earlier race when it seemed like they were playing “rope a dope”, then striking when Ainslie’s men were showing fatigue. They gamely followed but did what surfers call pearling or boneyarding, they stuck the bows under and the boat pitchpoled before reaching the start line. It’s hard to say how much damage was done to the boat. The wing was damaged and losing pieces from its head. The aerodynamic fairings were shredded. If they can fix their boat, they still have a chance, but reliability may suffer now.
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The photo is of Kaimu’s port shrouds after raising the mast. There is still more work to be done. The headstay may need to be shortened a bit and the starboard upper shroud needs to be relashed.
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