Sailing: First Crewed Sail

With a mixture of experience on board we set off on a grey and damp day into 4ft swell and a steady 13kt breeze.

Over two hours we got everyone familiar with the basic boat controls and by the end everyone could work a winch and a  few people had some helmsing experience. Hopefully people will be back for more and we'll continue to work on learning trim!

Racer 5 IPA wrapped up the day.

This week a chap from North Sails should be coming to measure the boat for her new cruising sails. These are going to be pretty high tech and should get her moving well without needing the racing sails. I'm excited for a couple of months from now when we hoist fresh white canvas on a windy day :)

Technique: Splicing double braid

1) Watch video here, all the way through before you start
2) Practice on some old line
3) Practice on some new line

Managed some pretty good looking splices with 3/8" line but still haven't managed to get the fid & line back past the Y on 5/16", just too tight! To manage with the 3/8" I also had to thin out the core a bit to get it into the fid properly. First practice run to the left, last to the right - neater - actual lines are neater still and on the boat already!

Sailing: Vida's first sail - weeeeeee

Just 30 minutes out of the harbor on a blustery day with rain clouds around and 15 knots of wind. Mainly just to break the ice really and to start seeing the logistics of having Vida on board.

So we just dashed out, unrolled the headsail, tacked and headed back in.

As soon as we started rising over the waves V started saying "weeeeee" and while we had the sail up she continuously said weeee again and again with a big smile on her face. The last few minutes as we came back in under power again she lay on her back on the cockpit floor smiling at the mast and rigging.

I've been going to the boat before work with her, and she's been asking to go have more boat, hopefully now she's even more excited by it and I can keep that up for years to come!

What we learnt....

• We need a better way of tethering her. She was tethered to the traveller supports and we need to tether her forwards of that.
• Her shoes, while warm, had no grip. Need to fix that!
• Probably need to put the door slats in so she can't climb downstairs

So I'll need to find a better place to tie her to, nothing stands out at first glance - perhaps we can arrange a tie across the cockpit floor that she tethers to on a shorter leash keeping her away from the cockpit and the traveller?

How did Kraken perform under headsail alone? Slight amount of leehelm, 4-5 knots speed in 15knots of breeze. Surprisingly good really!

Video: Deck layout

With Kraken in Oceanside I was able to pare down the onboard inventory to something a bit more sensible, only one spin pole, one set of race sails etc. My garage is now covered in drying out spinnaker (they were on the foredeck from MDR down). During this I took a moment to video the deck layout - so I have something for reference while working out how to sail her better!