Well as many of you that have been following this blog from the beginning will know, 5 years ago we embarked on a 3 year plan to give up the rat race and sail off into the sunset. By that statement alone you can see we haven’t made it yet, and in reality it will be another 2 years until were completely ready.
As many cruisers before us will testify, things just don’t go they way you planned them, everything always takes longer than you expected, money, work, life in general and a myriad of other little things you never really took into consideration always seem to scupper your progress.
One of the toughest things to program and allow time for, is the jobs you need to do to get your boat ready for this adventure, some of it is timing, some of it is you just have to wait until the weathers right, or that the boat is out of the water. Some of it is what i term “job discovery” this is while doing one job, you discover that something else needs replacing, or that “you might as well do it while you’re there, as you won’t get a chance to do it when you put it back together” sort of jobs and most of the time its just it is just sheer expense. I dread to think, although I’ve got a pretty good idea what we’ve spend on Allegrini since buying her.
Anywho, this weekend we’ve started the process for the last few major pieces that haven’t been changed out, and are part of the original kit fitted when Allegrini was made, back in 2004.
The first piece of the jigsaw, namely the Traveller is a piece of kit that allows the boom to move between port and starboard, while still staying connected to the boat, this is the piece of kit that allows you to move the position of the boom & mainsail to get the most power from it. (If you really want to know I’ve linked all the “sailing terms” on this blog to a site that explains things in greater detail) The original was a Lewmar were going to replace it with a Selden.
The second piece of the jigsaw is the Clutches, these are the bits of kit that stop the Sheets (ropes) from releasing when you don’t want them to.
Were going to replace them and also add a few more, so we can bring some of our spare halyards back to the cockpit.
To enable us to do these works we’ve had to take down most of the headlining (ceiling) in the salon (lounge). this hasn’t seen the light of day since it was built, these are made up of sectional pieces, all numbered, but will probably be a complete bugger to put back.
And finally, not a final piece of any jigsaw, but an upgrade to make life easier when using the cruising chute is the swapping out of our traditional Snuffer .(like a giant condom that squeezes the sail down) for a Selden GX furler which will furl (roll up) the cruising chute, making it easier and quicker to use.
Video