First Sail - kind of

We took advantage of the light winds on Sunday to take Kismet out for the first sail. A number of time consuming reasons had us in the water with mast up at 1:30pm.

Nearly ready...

There was a lot of traffic on the water and we had not boated for almost a year so it took us to almost 3pm (having lunch while drifting) to finally raise the jib for the first time.

Given about 5 knots of wind I was happy we made steering speed but we ran out of time to try the main (long story).

The jib appears too long. See attached picture. It's OK on downwind or board reach but closer to the wind it's sitting on the roof. It was up close  against the top halyard block.

Retrieving was a pain AGAIN with Kismet slipping off a roller and gouging the keel a bit. Not sure how we can improve that - it's the worst part of going out for the day. (We are doing day sails while we shake down the boat.)

Over all I regard it as a great success - the mast appeared solid with so sign of distress in chainplates or tacktrack.

We won't launch at the warmies again for sailing - too busy and takes  too long to get to sailing areas.

We should also rig all sails on land - live and learn.

Better half was quite concerned even with the light conditions so I took that into account - hence jib only.

The jib turns out to be about 500mm too long in both luff and leach so it's at a sail maker now awaiting us to give him some critical measurements so it can be modified.

In the picture you can see the jib dragging on the cabin roof.