Today the winds were fairly mild. There was a big storm inland and, for some reason, it had taken most of the wind with it. Thus, we decided now was the time to start getting the mainsail back on the mast.

This is no small job since the sail weighs well over a million pounds… OK, I know my nose just grew a little bit on that fib but after hauling it around the boat deck and getting it ready to raise it, it sure felt like a million pounds to me.

With Mary Margaret manning the winch and I standing on the mast steps just above the boom, we slowly, very slowly, raised the main. As it went up, Mary Margaret would stop the winch when each batten rose up to the level of its respective batten car. I would then insert a bolt into the batten car and through part of the batten receptacle link that is affixed to the sail. Holding on to the mast for dear life, I would then tighten the bolts down. Now, that does not sound too difficult but it was since I had to wrap my arms around the mast to get to the bolt and the nut and still hang on. It was slow work and in the process I discover that I reinstalled one of the batten cars in the wrong order last week. D*@#n!!!

When I made that discovery, the wind was starting to pick up so we just continued on in order to get the sail attached and then stowed into its stack pack before the heavy winds returned. We will need to re-raise the sail again so I can remove the batten car and place it in is correct order. Since we still need to raise the sail and insert our new battens, this is just a “minor” inconvenience.

On the “batten front”, Keith, the owner of the local fiberglass shop brought our three new battens to our boat today. Hooray!! That saga is now behind us. We now just need to insert them into the sail, measure where the ends need to be cut, then cut the ends and reinsert them into the sail. I can tell this is going to be another all day job….