Bristol-Blue Lake Michigan Sailing Adventures

The weather here is starting to warm up and people are starting to prep their boats for the season. There has been a lot of speculation about whether boats would be put in this year due to the Covid-19 outbreak or not. The boatyard has been pretty quiet up to the last week or so and boats are starting to go in.  Last season I had to go up the mast in the Bosen chair. Most of the people climbing masts don't recommend climbing wire halyards. The main halyard is actually in pretty rough shape so this season with the mast down I decided to replace it with an all rope halyard and eliminate the wire split. This will give me a lot of peace of mind for the next time I have to climb the mast. This Spring I am preparing for the conversion to roller furler. This required a rigging change for Woodstock's forestay. I needed to switch out the turnbuckle at the bottom and the top needed to have a toggle end. I picked up a new forestay at Rigging Only   Sometimes t

I am working towards installing a roller furler on Woodstock this spring.  To this end, I decided to convert my Tri-Radial cut Mylar Genoa. While this sail is getting up there in age I feel pretty confident that I can get another season or two out of it before needing to replace it. This is a pretty complicated process as it involves your boat's specific measurements and I can't say enough about the support from Sailrite on this project.  Sailrite's Jeff Franks has a great video on how to do the conversion step by step. I highly recommend watching it here:   https://youtu.be/8AY9c28aicA   The team at Sailrite even got me in touch with Jeff via email to answer a few specific questions I had. Many people want to know about my set up. Specifically my sewing machine So I'll start there. I am using an older Sears/Kenmore sewing machine. It is a pretty strong machine but has its limitations as you will see later on in this post.  Perhaps someday in the future, I'll u

As winter's go this year we have had it pretty light here along the West Coast of Lake Michigan.  So far I've only really needed to clear the driveway 3 times.  However last weekend we finally did get some accumulation.  Once I got the house and driveway squared away I headed down to the marina to see how the boat faired.  Not so bad the cover is holding up well and the deck is dry.  I can't ask for much more.  I decided to brush it off anyways.  With the mast down I'm trying to keep the weight off as much as possible.  I know Spring is just around the corner.  

Preventative Maintenance Water Pump Impeller  This weekend we have had some unseasonably warm weather. I took the opportunity to do some much-needed maintenance on the iron genny. I'm not sure when the impeller what changed last but it was clearly overdue.   Slimy and gross.  It took me about an hour and a half but I got it all cleaned up and reassembled.

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