Mary Margaret and I worked today, trying to get Leu Cat ready for our next visitors, our good friends from Las Vegas, Joe and Valerie. Mary Margaret did two loads of wash while I worked on a few small boat projects, including the mast batten car track issue. To address the problem with the track snagging the batten cars as they pulled up and dropped down the sail, I asked Mary Margaret to haul me up the mast. The problem area of the track is located just past the first spreader bar, about half way up the mast.

Inspection of that area immediately identified the problem. It was at a section where there is a joint between two pieces of abutting pieces of track. To join the two pieces of track, there is a slug which helps keep the two tracks aligned. A slug is just a short, flat piece of a thin metal bar this fits in a groove in each track. It prevents the tracks from moving sideways as the batten cars pass over the joint between the two abutting tracks.

The problem is that the bottom bolt that holds the slug in place had come loose and its head sheared off when we last raised the mainsail. A part of the bolt’s shaft was still protruding above the track and this is what was catching the batten cars as we lowered the mainsail.

The seas in our anchorage here in behind Hassel Islands are ephemeral. When Mary Margaret took me up the mast the first time, they were not too bad. However, when I went up the second time, armed with my Dremmel tool and pulling up 30 feet of electrical cord, the seas had gotten a bit worse and now the boat was rocking a bit. This made grinding the remaining stem of the bolt back to be under the edge of the track just too hard and a bit dangerous. Thus, I stopped after a while and had Mary Margaret lower me back down to the deck.

If the seas quiet down some tomorrow, I may try again. Our fallback position is to make this repair when we motor up to Salt Pond Bay in St John’s on Monday. The bay is well protected and the seas there should be still.

After inspecting the track the first time but before deciding how to attack the problem, I was inside the salon researching how our sail track was constructed. While doing this research, we were hailed by a sailboat drifting by. Intrigued by who was calling out “Leu Cat, Leu Cat”, I ran out onto the deck. To my surprised, there was SV/ Zephyr with Bill and Tracy waving to me. What a surprise! I had received an email from Bill a few days ago which said he was in CA to provision. The only place that I know that uses the initials CA was California so his email did not make a lot of since to me. As it turns out, he was using CA to refer to Charlotte Amelie, here in St. Thomas. Thus, they had been anchored only a ½ mile away, just on the other side of Hassel Island from us!

They were going by us on their way to Lindborg Bay, next to the airport. They said that Charlotte Amelie was going to be having very loud music the next few nights and they wanted to get away from it. Lindberg Bay is a couple of miles from us so I am hoping I can find the time tomorrow to take the dinghy and see them. However, tomorrow will be a busy day for us so I am not sure that will happen.