Repairs Ongoing

WW had threatened to start bright and early. He generally keeps his threats. In fairness, though, he doesn't seem to expect me to follow suit.

By shortly after 9, having breakfasted and abluted, he was sewing up the mainsail. My mission, should I choose to accept it (I did), was to tighten the trampoline lines which had been loosened to reset the bars. It was very hot. We both grunted a bit. We got the jobs done.

After lunch, we were taken in to Puerto Plata, about 5 km from Ocean World, were we stopped on a narrow street full of people selling, making and buying automotive bits and pieces. We needed to have the mainsail car from the boom repaired. Much muttering and discussion was followed, within about 10 minutes, by the repaired car being returned to us. The cost was a princely 100 RD (32 RD = 1 dollar). We then visited a bookstore, where we bought several children's books in Spanish, and a grocery store for the essential ron punche limes.

Back at Django, it was a balmy 38C under the bimini, 30C inside. In the cool of the evening, we headed back to Almost Open, the grouper sandwich's siren call being irresistible to William.

Saturday morning, he was at it again. The car was installed, the patched mainsail was furled. Then it was time for aerial work.

The bos'un's chair is a structure which can be attached to a halyard such that a person sitting in it can be hauled up to the masthead. WW needed to fix the forestay. He had realized that it was not, in fact, falling apart, but that it has a good solid steel cable at its core. However, it is sheathed in sections of aluminum tubing. Two of those sections, about two thirds of the way up, had separated.

The first attempt had him shinnying up the forestay while I used a winch and the windlass to support him. He found the problem and descended, but decided it was too hard on the windlass to go up that way. We really don't want to burn out its motor. Next time, he climbed the mast, swung over Tarzan-style to the forestay. It was all very dramatic and exciting and so forth. Especially the parts when he squealed a lot. He didn't entirely trust me to lower him slowly enough and was understandably nervous. I did a brilliant, not to say perfect, job.

We refurled the genny, then WW replaced various lines (including our topping lift) and I swabbed the decks. Within a couple of hours we had a gleaming boat with an entirely new set of lines, repairs all done, ready for a sea trial.