Kaimusailing

Pizza day was spent prepping toppings and working on the leech reef cringle patches on the heavy jib. The main topping was Walmart Great Value mild sausage. Hey, you have to go with what you can get these days. I sliced the sausage into small pieces and fried them until they were just done. I was able to get Galibani whole milk mozzarella and diced that. I purchased sliced mushrooms this time because I had read that sliced mushrooms are cleaned before they are sliced and whole mushrooms are of course not cleaned. Saves a couple of steps. I minced a head of garlic.
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I expected only 5 people for Pizza Night so planned to make only 4 pies. The last time I had made pies double the weight of what I had made previously and now I wanted to lighten them up a bit but not as thin as before. I calculated 2 cups of water to 5 cups of flour. The warm water was mixed with some honey and yeast and allowed to foam up while I took a shower. Then 3 cups of flour were added all at once and mixed with the hand mixer and dough hooks for a minute or two, then allowed to rest for about a half hour. The dough rose into a puffy dome and now two more cups of flour were added one at a time and mixed for a couple of minutes each. The dough was “strong” and separating from the sides of the bowl. I poured some olive oil around the edges of the ball of dough and lifted it out of the bowl, peeling it from the sides, and letting the olive oil prevent it from sticking back onto the bowl. The ball of dough was put on an oiled pan and cut into 4 pieces with an oiled knife.
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The individual pieces of dough were put on unoiled pizza pans keeping the oily surface of the dough up and the dry surface down onto the pan. This kept the dough stationary on the pan as the pie was formed by pressing down with the heel of my hand (oiled) and pushing the dough out to the edge of the pan. Because the bottom of the dough ball and the pie pan were not oiled, the flattened dough did not spring back, it stayed in the shape it was formed. The four pie pans were allowed to sit for a couple of hours covered by inverted beer serving trays which are larger than the pie pans.
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When the time came to bake, the oven was started, and then I began putting the pies together. The tops of the pies were already smeared with olive oil. Next I sprinkled 1/4 of the minced head of garlic, then I covered the pie with diced mozzarella, then a smattering of tomato puree with nothing added, then dusting with Hawaiian sea salt from a mill and Sam’s Choice Italian Style Herbs. Next came the toppings, I made one pie of just sausage, one of pepperoni, one of mushrooms, and the last pie had all three. The pies were covered with the beer trays again to keep insects away.
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I increased the baking time to 10 minutes from the previous 8 for the thinner pies and it would be 5 minutes, pull out the pie and turn it 180 degrees, put it back in for another 5 minutes. Because the oven got hotter the longer it was cooking, I baked the thinnest pie first, the pepperoni, then the sausage, then the mushroom, and lastly the everything pie that had the heaviest load of toppings. As the pies came out I could see they baked well. I had removed some of them early if they looked like they were done enough.
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My guests showed up with two absentees due to health reasons. There were only 3 of us to devour 4 pies. Of course we didn’t finish it all and had about 8 slices left over to take away for later. These pies were maybe the best I have made so far. The edges of the crust were crunchy but not hard, the center of the pies came out well baked, if I made pies like this from now on I would be happy.
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The work on the leech reef cringle patches was much easier than what I went through at the luff. The luff has a wire embedded in it and it makes it difficult to work on that edge of the sail. The leech is smooth with just a double hem to deal with. The patches were sewn in while waiting for the pizza dough to rise.
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Next I have to install the cringles themselves which in this case are D-rings held by 1 1/4“ nylon straps. The straps are pop riveted to the sail over the patches. The rivets are flat headed and the heads are inserted into escutcheon washers which are also called finishing washers. The washers have an indentation for the flat headed rivet’s bevel. The other side of the rivet has a backing washer on it. Basically the sail is sandwiched by the nylon strap on one side and the carbon reinforced mylar patches on the other. I plan on using 5 rivets for each leg of strap.
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The day after pizza night was my first attempt at riveting a cringle, this one on the leech. It went well. The holes in the sail and strap were made with a large old nail that was sharpened to a point on the grinder. The photo is of the straps pop riveted on the sailcloth side of the sail, on the other side the rivets are held by backing washers against the mylar reefing clew patches.