Night rigging
Final preparations before long weekend and family sailing: I took home all the remaining junk from the boat and installed new madrases which just arrived.
I needed to wait until late evening to work with the mainsail - there was too much wind to safely rise the sail and work with the running rig.
While waiting for the wind to die I finished repairing cleat/winch shelves on cockpit coamings.
All old screw-holes were plugged with mahogany plugs set in epoxy. Port shelf was glued back where it belongs. After the epoxy set I could instal new Tufnol cleats - Aladdin lamps. They will work better than previous clam cleats.
Wind has finally calmed down around 22:00 so I could uncover the main sail and attach reefing track which I got from Börje. It is screwed with eleven M5 screws, set in Loctite blue thread-glue.
(thanks again Albert ! ).
Following advice from Rigging Doctor I installed reefing lines on one side of the sail. I also rigged small blocks on leach grommets, to minimise friction while reefing. Soft shackles do the job here.
After all lines were installed and trimmed the sail is now equipped with all reef lines in traditional slab-reefing manner.
Tomorrow I will provision Meritaten with food, water and fuel and on Friday we will head for sea!