I probably could have benefited from a vacation from Changabang. But I just couldn’t live with the sense of defeat I’m still carrying, and set out to fix things. I expect that I will run out of fumes at some point, and will distance myself a bit. To recharge I do go to bed early, and wake up late. In the afternoon I feel sleepy, especially when driving! I vaguely recall a saying that it takes one day of recovery for each day of sailing, when competing in the solo race to Hawaii. I hope it won’t take me five weeks to recover! Oh, and did I say I lost 20 lbs. during those five weeks? Anyone looking for a diet?
At some point I think I’ll put pen to paper for a good long reflection on the shakedown cruise. For now, it’ll likely be small bites on repair/fixing progress. That said, if anyone has suggestions/leads for employment or sponsorship, feel free to reach out, using the comments or “Contact us” form.
Side note: we’re struggling to get into the 3 digits subscriber count … stuck on 99. Get your mama to sign up! For what it’s worth I looked up the stats for pjsails.com; not surprisingly they went from about 200 views/week before departure to 4-5,000 views/weeks during the first two weeks, and then progressively back down to 2,500 during the fifth week, and now we’re back to 200+ views/weeks. I was not expecting this type of attraction so I’ll call this a success story! The tracker page is the clear winner.
Boom updates
The boom is now in Watsonville, with a good chance of being repaired. A new one would have cost about $1,200, plus custom crate for delivery ($200), plus shipping (likely $600); so a repair, though not cheap, is a more attractive option, financially that is, because, cosmetically, a repaired boom doesn’t rank high … That said, the repair is not in the bag until the spar builder gets into the nitty gritty of the repair.
Today I picked apart the gooseneck. The carbon fittings in the mast would be very happy with some level of rebuilding, which I may be able to do with epoxy/sanding. The toggle appears fairly worn out, in particular the hole was elongated, so I’ll likely replace it.
On the topic of sails
On a Class40 boat like Changabang, the sails are big, which means they are fairly expensive. As an example, the new mainsail (manufactured in early 2018) cost $18,500. So I am trying to preserve them for the potential next owner, as they do add value to the boat. The new mainsail was rolled up and stored in the attic, where the staysail will follow suit, while I continue to wear down the old Dacron sails.
The only new sail I am using is the genoa, as I don’t really have another one to play with. The genoa, unfortunately, suffered a bit of chafe damage when I eased it out on the bow pulpit. It’s with Leading Edge Sails for repair. The batten pocket will get some fixing too (if you recall the batten was found on deck some day while at sea). That is one sail I’d like to put in storage too, and work with a heavy Dacron one. The performance in light air would be affected in exchange of durability/reparability. As far as spinnakers are concerned, they’ll just have to wait for better options.
What else happened? I swapped the prop on one of the hydrogenerator; brought all the food back home; went up the mast to install the new windvane, only to find out that the bracket is dead (I’ll have to go back up). That’s all for now …
