Tooth and Mainsail

Brenda arrived in Cape Town thinking that she was past the complication of a tooth extraction that had left fragments of loose bone in her jaw.  Last Saturday the pain returned and after a bad night we made the decision on Sunday morning to seek emergency treatment.  I got on the internet and soon found a dental practice with 24 hour emergency service, Kromboom Dental Centre, in Rondebosch East, about 15 km from the marina.  I made the call at 8.30 AM and our appointment was for 9.30 AM, no later, which meant that we had to hustle in preparing ourselves and finding our way to the practice.

Just before 9 AM we had the marina call the cab driver who seems to service RCYC, and just after 9  AM we were on our way.  Fortunately the driver knew where we had to go, drove fast, and got us there at 9.25 AM.

Dr Khan attended to Brenda, and impressed her with her skill and state of the art digital equipment that she had not seen in Australia.  Bone fragments were not the problem, and that area was healing well.  The problem was an infection underneath the tooth next to the one that had been extracted.  Brenda was given a choice between extraction or a root canal.  It turned out that a root canal would be much cheaper here in Cape Town than in Australia and on Monday Brenda made an appointment next Saturday for the first visit of a root canal procedure.  Some if not all of the treatment should be recoverable from Brenda's travel insurance.

The cab driver had stood by waiting for us and after the emergency treatment drove us to the V&A where Brenda obtained prescriptions for two different antibiotics.   He then drove us back to the marina an we were back on the boat before 11 AM.  The cost of the cab service was R350, about $35, which I considered to be a bargain.  After a bad day yesterday (Tuesday) the antibiotics have kicked in and the pain has finally stopped.

------------------------

Since Saturday we have confined ourselves to the marina but fortunately for me the wind died down to practically nothing at times, which enabled me to do some work on the boat.  Better yet, Steve delivered the mainsail, its cover, and the "heave to" sheets for the cockpit frame on Monday afternoon.  There was a screw up with the measurement for the cover and there were grommets missing on the two sheets so those two items went back for modification.  However, Steve left the mainsail and yesterday I was able to take advantage of the calm conditions to set it up and try it out.

New Main Halyard Jam Cleat

Third Reef

Shock Cord for Binding Excess Sail

I hoisted the mainsail all of the way to the top by jumping the halyard at the mast  with amazing ease.  The enclosed photo will show the new third reef.  The three sets of cringles (grommets) running horizontally denote the reef lines.  The new 3rd reef at the top has two cringles.

Another photo shows the use of black shock cord for holding the excess sail to the boom with the first reef.  This will prevent accidental ripping of the sail if I forget to free the cringles before shaking out the reef.  I found that the second reef did not need the shock cord treatment because the excess sail seemed to ride nicely on top of the 1st reef, but I decided to tie it down anyway to deal with high winds. 

I had decided to try Steve's idea of using the first reef line at the leech (back of the boom) also for the 3rd reef.  This was because there are only three sheaves at the back of the boom, two dedicated to reefing lines and the middle one for the outhaul.

I tied a loop of strong cord from the 2nd to the 3rd reef cringle, leaving a tail of loose cord at the bottom of the loop.  When I went from the 1st to the 2nd reef I freed the 1st reef line from the sail then tied its end to the tail at the bottom of the loop of cord.  I then used the cord to pull the 1st reef line up through the 3rd reef cringle then back down to my eager hands.  I then secure the line around the boom and was now ready for the 3rd reef.  It all worked very well.

Buoyed by this success I decided to implement an idea that I had run past Steve who pronounced it to be a good one.  When jumping the main halyard at the mast I have had the problem of how to hold the sail up while I rush to the cockpit to take up the slack at the winch.  I had been forced to wind the halyard around a bollard which meant that when I loosened the halyard from the bollard I would lose a precious 18" or so of sail height.

I found a jam cleat that I had been carrying from Fremantle and thru-bolted it to a flat surface at the tabernacle.  This will enable me to cleat off the halyard then take up the slack at the winch without losing any sail height.  I'll then be able to free the halyard from the jam cleat then return to the winch at the cabin top and finish the raising of the sail.

There were two potential problem areas.  There was the question of whether my Bosch portable drill was up to the job of drilling through the 12mm thick aluminum plate.  I fully charged both of its batteries and was hoping for the best.  The other question was whether I could manage to position the lower nut in the extremely narrow space between the tabernacle and the mast.

Fortunately the Bosch did a sterling job on just one battery.  I used a center punch in the center of the circle that I had traced with a pencil then drilled slowly using a small bit, watching the continuous spiral of aluminum working its way out.  I then used the same slow drill technique with the full sized bit.  For the nut problem I used a thin screw driver to slide the nut over the hole and managed to get the bolt thread started.  Once the lower bolt was snug I punched at the center of the upper aperture of the jam cleat and finished the job with no major drama.

I then went to the boat shop at the end of the jetty and purchased 14 meters of 10mm line to replace the 12.8 meter 1st reef line which was just barely adequate for the new 3rd reef role and might cause me trouble in rough weather.

The photo shows the black jam cleat at the center, slightly angled to match the angle of the halyard.  the halyard is hanging naturally to it left, which means that the jam cleat will present no problem when I drop the mainsail.