First Day Out

First day out with Alexis, the skipper we hired to do some training with us.

Big tidy-up to get the boat ship-shape for sailing.

Went out from Jolly Harbour, and up north past Sandy Island, to the NW of Antigua. Got used to the setup of the boat. Practised going about, and jibe drills. Controlled the jibes using the preventers wrapped over an already occupied winch. Turns out it needs two wraps if you want to avoid rope burn :P

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Experimented with heaving to. The boat doesn't come to a stop easily, keeps a couple of knots under way when hove to. But, it is stable.

Put in a second reef, while offshore, heaved to a little easier.

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We played with sail trim. Tried tightening the back-stays, and in the process stripped out the threads on the port back-stay hydraulic tensioner, by not properly releasing the threaded half-nuts before releasing tension.

Came back into Jolly Harbour in the afternoon, and accidentally left the drive-shaft brake on, while motoring to anchor, wearing down the brake pads.

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