Fixing the boat I have

Monday was a good day for dealing with things on the Internet and on the phone. The day started with snow which accumulated to about an inch before turning to rain. Not a good day for playing outside.

The main sail on my Oday 19 is blown out and ripped. It's like the main motor is not firing on all cylinders. It really needs to be replaced. After a lot of searching around I decided to go with Bacon Sails. They e-mailed a detailed Measurement Form.

Apparently it's not enough to know the model and year of your boat. There's a lot of variance between boats, even those that are the same model. Rather than build a sail that sorta fits, they want to build one that really fits my particular boat. Makes sense, I guess.

I wish it was simple, as now I've got a lot of measuring to do. The boat will have to be unwrapped from its winter cocoon and moved to where I can lift the mast without getting tangled up in power lines. Tuesday is supposed to be another rainy day, but the sun is supposed to come out Wednesday.

I hope to get them moving on the sail fairly soon as it takes about four weeks to build it. They want half the money up front and the other half when the sail is completed. That seems to be a common practice in the industry.

While waiting for the sails to come in I might as well do a few other projects, like a mount for the 100 watt solar panel. A new cabin hatch would be great too. The Oday has a removable cabin hatch instead of a sliding one. It's a miracle that it hasn't fallen off the boat and sank to the bottom of the ocean. It would be kinda cool to build something that gives me a few more inches of headroom too. That would certainly make the boat more comfortable.

Maybe I can get all those projects done before the sail comes in. Right now all the ice isn't even off the lake yet, so giving it another month to warm up isn't a bad thing.

-Sixbears