Bristol-Blue Lake Michigan Sailing Adventures

   

  This winter I decided it was time to add that sunroof/skylight I've wanted since first installing the bimini on Woodstock. The bimini is the shade canvas over the cockpit. Its function is to keep the sun off the sailors on long trips, and it has been well worth it over the past few years. The only real problem with it is seeing the wind vane at the top of the mast. When we remade the canvas last year we discussed adding a window then but decided to hold off and make sure everything was fitted correctly. This decision allowed me to determine exactly how large a window as well as the proper location to install the window. The window needs to be positioned to allow the pilot to drive the boat and see the wind vane without having to yoga around the support poles and lifelines. Before removing the bimini from the boat this fall I placed a few light marks with a sharpie to indicate where the window needs to fall.  Using a T square I am tracing out the lines and transferring it so ...

Genoa Sleeve Cover Repair This season sail cleaning and canvas repairs are the order of business. A few years back I sewed this Sailrite Sleeve for my foresails and I really like it a lot. It might not be as convenient as a roller furler with a UV guard on the leach of the sail but I can get a better sail shape when underway and think that it is totally worth the extra work of putting the sleeve up and down. Mid-season one of my webbings broke free of its stitching at the time it was not a bit deal but I decided now that the cover is off for the year and home for the winter it would be a good time to do a little repair job. I grabbed out a few tools and got down to it.  The hardest part of this job was finding the end of my thread. Stuffed in a box for the last year it was a bit tangled up.  Once that was done I used my speed stitcher to sew the webbing back on. Note I'm really not great with this tool but at this point, I really want to get better so instead of going back int...

  Market Place Score!  I picked this up a few weeks ago. An Asymmetric Spinnaker nice and yellow to match Woodstock's hull. I'm excited to fit this to the rig this Spring. While I already have one Asym this one is shaped a little differently and I'm hoping it will allow me to point a bit higher on those light-wind days. I might even need to run a second halyard up to that masthead and see if I can fly both of them at the same time LOL or do on-the-fly swaps. Regardless this is the season for bargain hunting. I've been lucky enough to pick this up as well as a bag of hardware so far this year. 

It is the end of December here in Michigan and we are experiencing 40 and 50-degree days. I'm starting to wonder if we even needed to pull out for the winter at this point. I'm sure the winter will get here soon enough. Hopefully, its late arrival doesn't me a late departure as well.  Usually, this time of year I am working on a sewing project of some sort but with the warm weather, I decided to push back canvas work and go down to work on the winches. The black tarp I use to cover Woodstock really helps to keep it warm inside on days like this. Here is a recap video no step-by-step but if you are working on your boat it is pretty easy to pop them apart clean them up and snap them back together. This Fall when winterizing my good old Evinrude I drained a lot of frothy oil out of the lower unit. I've known this has been coming for some time. Each year that lower unit lube looks a little worse at the end of the season.  So I also replaced all the seals and the water pump....

This week I took advantage of a few nice weather days to do a little end-of-season sail care. The Mylar Genoa had a few frays at the seams so I trimmed them back. Flacked it down nicely and it is ready to go for the Spring. My main sail was attacked by spiders this season. So I decided to give it a good cleaning. For this, I used a Davis Sail maintenance kit. However, I modified my technique. The kit calls for soaking your sail and I felt that this would lead to a wrinkly sail and mine is still good and stiff.  I laid my sail out on the lawn and used the Sail bath product from the kit mixed with the soaking directions. I brushed the product onto the sail and waited. It did a pretty decent job but I'm not sure there was much to clean off to begin with. However, the Foaming cleaner was really nice. I used it to spot-treat a few areas where spider nests had formed and it did an excellent job pulling up the stains.  After the final rinse, I grabbed all the lawn chairs and draped t...