Water

We launched the boat on Sunday (after putting in a looong Saturday on the bathroom fixup to gain enough points to go sailing on Mother's Day!). It was a gorgeous spring day, with winds around 10 knots.  We skipped Saturday since it was over 20 all day, gusting much higher, and not a good day to launch a new boat in cold water with a family crew!

This ended up being mostly a boat launching rehearsal, since I skyed the main halyard shortly after launching- it's a 2:1 jobbie with a tiny tail line, so even with a stopper knot it sucked into the mast when my daughter yanked on it. Sigh. They'd already patiently endured a long drawn out launch process as I fumbled through it the first time, so we just put up the jib and went out toddling around the lake seeing the scenery and such. My daughter likes to use the cabin top as a small playground slide, landing on the foredeck.

I still have lots of "features" to test and bring into play, but all the basics worked on this trip. Naturally I've now got a list of launch and rigging improvements, but no majors. Add a snap shackle to the keel hoist rig instead of fumbling with a cotter pin and ring, add a stopper BALL (or learn to tie a monkey fist!) to the tail of the main halyard, replace a knee-ripping eyestrap in the cockpit with a soft attachment, and probably revise the location of the mainsheet cleat on the boom- it catches on my back (pfd) when I go under. Stuff like that...