Fully rigged

Important day today as I finally got the mast up for the first time since last September. The first picture shows her fully rigged. I am very pleased with the blue sail cover. Only £70 from ebay, as opposed to hundreds from anywhwere else. Seems to do the job. The jib luff needs tensioning. I have rigged a flag halyard on the main mast for a wind burgee, which I missed last year.
I have fitted red and green (port and starboard) lazy jacks, but still need to modify them slightly. I have got cheek blocks for them on the boom. but I think a simple fairlead would work better.

The second picture shows the revised jib tack. A ring bolt just behind the stem head. This seems to work really well. The furler works without a hitch. I have fitted snap shackles to the top of the furler and on the jib halyard. This means I can quickly unclip the jib and stow it away. It goes into one of the bow lockers, which surprised me. I now have the jib stowed in the port locker and the anchor in the  starboard one. I shall probably stow the jib when on the mooring to protect it from UV.

There isn't much spare room at the top of the jib luff, but enough. It is curious how the section of the mast around the hounds apears so black in this photo. To the eye the whole mast is just black.

I told someone that I tighten my jib luff with  handy-billy, and got a blank look in return. So this is it. A handy-billy is a wierd name for a simple mobile block and tackle you use to tighten things up. Mine is a 1:4 arrangement with a jamb cleat at the bottom. I clip the bottom to the ring bolt on the deck, lash the top to the jib halyard with a rolling hitch, and heave up to tighten. Works a treat. If I tighten the jib by hand, I can barely clip the forestay onto the stemhead. If I yank it tighter with the handy-billy, the forestay is quite slack and can easily be clipped on and then tightened witht he bottle screw. It can just be left in place, or the unlashed after belaying the halyard and used elsewhere.

And finally, my flashy new Dyneema shrouds. They are just the right length. I may have to lash out on a matching forestay at some stage. The mast is so light that I can swing it up to vertical just with muscle power. At that point the shrouds tighten and hold it laterally. I then pull in the jib halyard to hold it fore and aft. Then I go forward (after handy-billying) and secure the forestay. All quite straight forward...on a windless day.