Dick, since you often sail on San Francisco Bay,

Posted By: Vicki's Secret
Date: 6/4/08 1:52p.m.

Report: outside forum guidelines

In Response To: Hoisting (Dick Herman, Muddy Duck)

I can understand why you don't leave the cockpit while singlehanding. I refuse to sail where there are sharks -- or swimming convicts -- well, I've done it a couple times, but I was quite nervous. The only time I leave the cockpit, is when I need to drop anchor but that's usually in calmer waters (and believe me, I bodycrawl on that small forward deck). I thought if you kept the long linchpin holding the boom down, that the top of the throat gaff wouldn't reach the point near the throat halyard block -- due to the actual length of the sail stopping it. Figured that's why I was told to put the linchpin under the boom... to give the sail all its available material to reach that point. I'm going to try pulling the throat halyard between the Spinlock and the halyard block as you suggested. I'll just bet though that I'm not tall enough to brace my feet against the companionway side (with my back at the opposite companionway side). Because of the final hard pull on the throat halyard, it seems that before I can get the sail raised all the way, the wind begins to fill it. And man, does that make problems! I'm just not fast enough. Then I have trouble getting the sail back down to start over. It's a matter of purposely getting into irons at that point. As yet, I haven't seen my throat halyard getting stuck in the block up there, but I wear trifocals and if you think focusing in the right panel while looking upward is easy... my neck is still sore from my first sail the other day. Seems like all I did was look up. That piece of stainless steel that attaches to the throat halyard shackle and slides up the mast track is slightly bent due to last year's incident. It still works just fine until about 16 inches from the upper throat halyard block. What I need to do is get to the slip very early in the morning before the breeze picks up. Raise the sail while in the slip. See if the SailKote did the trick. If I still have the problem, and these other techniques suggested by Tom, Dick, and Harry don't work, I'll lower the mast and check if I need to file down a burr in the mast track. I use my linchpin the way Tom Ray does... under the boom. So back to your linchpin method, Dick: The idea behind this is that when you're raising the throat halyard, you're not carrying the weight of the boom? If I'm repeating myself, I apologize, people. I need to have complex processes explained 3 times.