No winter sailing this year

Even though we want to be able to sail Linnea during wintertime it won’t happen this year. (When I raced an optimist dinghy as a kid snow was never a problem if we just taped our boots to our oilskins real tight.)

Actually it sees like we might not get any more sailing at all before it’s time to take Linnea up. Maybe if I go up the mast and we get some strong winds, we might be tempted to try out how the sheeting arrangement works when reefed.

Anyway. On Sunday in three weeks  it’s time to take her up and before that we need to take the rig down. With a junk rig, unbending the sail is the hard part but the mast should be easy if it hasn’t swelled so it is totally stuck in deck or at the mast foot.

Now we are actually more motivated to continue with the interior than going out for more sail trials. Sure we need to continue to tweak the rig a bit. But it actually works fine as it is.

Important headlines on the to-do-list:

• Making new window frame patterns for the steering station. (Should we use plywood or mdf?)
• Mounting the head tank under the bunk in the aft cabin so we can finish here.
• Ordering a Dickinson Pacific stove.
• Ordering bow rollers.
• Ordering water tanks (anyone have experience with soft ones?)
• Ordering a diesel tank for the fore peak.
• Start to think about electrics.
• Find a way to make the deck box lids watertight.
• Finishing the companionway hatch. (Started this one yesterday)
• Put up a new video for Ricard to watch.

As you can see we will have stuff to write about in the blog during winter as well!

Drilling in the drizzle

Today we drilled some stainless. It is no fun even if the sun is shining. But it rained and was cold. It was quite fun to polish the stainless afterwards, though. Now no one is allowed to put fingerprints on the companionway hatch rails. They are shining!

If we get some hard wind before the middle of October we might take Linnea out for one more trip to check how she sails in a blow. It is quite likely. I have to go up the mast and turn the halyard block around first though. It was installed not to swivel but it did.

Look! No twist!

Ok, so Cia and the kids had to stay home since Cia was to leave for Rotterdam. But Ricard and I anchoring out for the night and everything went great. We even managed to borrow some charts for the area about half way there from Ricards mother and Göran who surprised us with their motor boat.

We were quite proud tacking up into the small cove, where we decided to anchor for the night. The junk rig is sweet that way, you just reef down a couple of panels and everything just goes slower. Too bad we had to start the engine to reset the anchor.

Cooked some lamb for a great dinner. Next morning we wished for bow rollers, while hauling the 45 lb CQR and 11 mm chain up by hand.

We managed to take away most of the twist in the sail by re-reaving the sheet:

Especially it is better when reefed than before. I have some more ideas about how to improve the sheet. Pic by Göran.

Next day I was a bit tired, since I just had to go look every hour if the anchor was holding. We sailed up to Göran and Eva’s place and were treated with fresh crayfish for lunch:

This is how we moor in Sweden in calm weather. No tide here in the Baltic.

One more photo of the boat by Göran: