Bristol-Blue Lake Michigan Sailing Adventures

Santa Clause was good to Woodstock this year. He brought me a new Sail Rite mainsail cover kit and some luff tape for a roller furler conversion.  After some debating back and forth on whether or not to just order the fabric, parts, and pieces I decided to go with the kit for the cover.  First I thought I would just make a copy of the cover I currently have but by the time I added it all up the kit was only a few dollars more and offered pre-laid out directions and patterns.  The first step is to layout the material. I went with Sunbrella silver to match the bimini I installed this summer.   Sail Rite  marks all the lines you need to cut right out for you on the fabric.  I lay a cutting board underneath so as not to mark up the floors. Then it is pretty simple to just follow the pre-laid outlines with a hot knife. My hot knife is not a $150 specialty tool. It is a harbor freight job that doubles as a wood burner. It does a really nice job cutting and sealing the edg

We set out to the lake again today.  It was a great time.  We are still getting a feel for the procedure in tacking.  Moving the traveler setting the genoa blocks, prepping the sheets, changing up the backstay tension. This boat has a lot going on compared to the Typhoon and we are loving every bit of it.   We spent our first night out in the anchorage after we returned.  This panorama of Lake Kalamazoo early in the morning show the tranquility before the channel gets busy. The new mosquito netting on the forward hatch and companionway worked great for our first night out on the hook. I attached both of these with industrial strength velcro. This velcro is supposed to hold up to 10lbs and work when it is wet, so I know the netting is not going to fly away in the wind. We even got the privacy curtain installed. Now the head can be used without flashing everyone on the boat. Again I used industrial velcro but at the top, I installed velcro strapping so when the