September 7th, 2008 -- Finally had a chance to put a few turns on the starboard middle turnbuckle to even out the rig.  Went out solo and finally the rig seems straight and true.  I think we are on the right track, but new middle's this off-season should make a big difference. 

 

September 4th, 2008 -- Spent this evening working with Mark to secure boats for impending tropical storm Hanna.  The forecast is for winds up to 60mph, so an extra line from my mooring to the mast was added.  Let's hope we don't need it.  We should be in relatively good shape.  Nightswimmer has no over the bow mooring lines, just two 5000 lb. clips connected to ubolts through the bow.  This means no chafing.  In addition, we don't have roller furling and we stow our main below when we are moored, so there is not an ounce of cloth for the wind to bite at.  That being said, we still keep our fingers crossed!  We set up a lot of chafing gear on other boats and tried to fix potential problems we saw on boats around the fleet. 

          Nightswimmer Braves Tropical

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

August 23rd, 2008 --  Today, Kelly and Val, who own Poppy the Olson 911 I normally race on, came out on Nightswimmer for a cruise.  They are great people and excellent sailors.  We had a nice sail in upwards of 20 knots of wind and a good bit of chop.  Kelly noticed that Nightswimmers mast was as straight as an arrow, and suggested some adjustments to the rig to allow us to blade out the main better.  We went back to the dock and made the changes, adding a drop of prebend, but found that the middle of the rig was now sagging to leeward.  Unfortunately, our port turnbucklle iss bottomed out, so we couldn't completely get this right, but I think we are close.  I replaced the headstay, uppers and lowers over the winters, but the backstay and middle shrouds are on the agenda for this offseason.  Thanks again to Kelly for lending his expertise on these!