New mainsheet traveler (and some other stuff)

During the weekend we have done some work on the boat, we have attached a new mainsheet traveler, the last solar panels and some other small tasks.

The first thing we did was to glue the final solar panels in position, we glued them on using marine sealant. With the 2 final ones we now have 5 solar panels in total. They are specified to 60W each, which gives 300W in total. On a good day they will probably give 200W, because of shadowing etc.

Next up was to attach a new mainsheet traveler we have bought second hand. The solution on our sailboat from before was that the mainsheet was attached to a point on the mizzen mast, pretty high up on the mast. Especially when sailing on a beam reach the boom behaves pretty bad and our kick can’t hold the sail down. Now we will have a better control of the leech tension.

We also fixed some final details for reefing the mainsail by attaching some cleats to attach the reef lines, more about our reefing solution can be found in the previous post or by clicking on the link HERE.

We have had another main sail which we wanted to try out, we had thought that it would be the same size as the one we already have. But we were wrong, it is to small for us. This means that we are stuck with our old main sail, it is not broken but we would really like a newer sail. We are already on the watch for a new furling genoa, so we will keep our eyes open for a new main sail as well. It’s a shame that the other main sail we had didn’t fit, since it is very fresh and doesn’t seem to be used much.

When we tried the sail out we also had the opportunity to test the anchor in the bow for the first time, and the manual anchor windlass we have in the bow. The windlass works fine, but of course an electrical one would be nice to have.

Finally we also changed a pipe for the freshwater system. There was a cooper pipe going from the water heater to the shower in the bathroom, which was broken. We changed it to a hose instead and now we have a complete fresh water system! 🙂