20061118

Polly Pureheart covered with snow. Its most unusual to have snow this early and in this volume. we've received almost 12 inches over the past 4 days. Its warmer today and we should be getting rain this evening. Hopefully it will melt most of the snow and we can go back to bare ground.

Haven't had much chance to get out sailing for the past few month. Lots of work days, and lots of bad weather. Kit and I met a couple, Great Lake sailors, who are here for the winter. We went out on a Saturday afternoon about 3 weeks ago, and had a pleasant sail with them. Then I got out last weekend for about 3 hours. I was just going to motor around as the wind was flukey and I was by myself. One of my dock neighbors was going out in their Columbia 35 (I think that's what it is) and issued kind of an unofficial challenge. I gladly bit the bullet, got the sails up and actually had a great time until I had to lower the main. I got it down finally, the #2 batten kept hanging up on the lazy jacks because I was having trouble keep Polly into the wind and getting up to the mast. She wants to fall off and run downwind. I think its time to update the flaking system.

I ordered new main and 125% jib from AirForce Sails. they should be here in January. I haven't ordered the Spin-Tec furler yet. Not really in a hurry since I'm not planning to install it before the weather gets better. the jib won't be usable, but I plan to get the main on right away. I'm very reticent to attempt sailing this winter with the current main. Its not in good shape and has a number of small holes and is really baggy.