Driveway Sailing

The weather was right - in the 80's with lots of sunshine.  So we uncovered Wrinkles and tried stepping the mast for the first time.  However, Mike had to make a mast raising system first.  Mister Engineer quickly fabricated a pulley set-up that pulls the mast up (cranked by me) while he walks forward with the mast and furler.  Very simple and very slick!  He'll post more details.  My excitement is that we were able to raise the mast pretty easily, without any trouble and found out where all the pieces/parts go.   Not that much different from the 19.  We unrolled the jib and figured out those lines.  It was too windy to try raising the mainsail, besides we have ordered new halyards as the ones on the boat were sun-rotted.

My other job was to remove the name that was previously painted on.  This was truly a "rice krispie treat" moment (looks harder than what it really is).   We looked online and several people mentioned that they, as well as professionals,  used Easy Off Oven Cleaner.  (Note:  They said to use the non-lemon version).  So I taped off the area with painters tape and garbage bags and set to work anticipating the need for plenty of elbow grease.  I was pleasantly surprised.  After the foam worked for five minutes, all I had to do was go over the area with a damp towel and voila! no more name.  It took longer to tape off the area than it did to remove the paint!  There is still an underlying layer that Mike is going to have to compound or sand off, but as long as you don't look too closely, the name is gone!  We'll have to do an official renaming ceremony to please the sea gods.

The lakes are still very low, so we can't put the boat in the water - yet!  Close, we are so close!