The sail down to the Sea of Cortez is quickly approaching. Thankfully the list of projects is shrinking and looks like there should be a green light for making the downwind cruise to La Paz in October.
Looking at my original list there were two categories of items, 1. Critical to the safety of the boat and 2. Things that could use attention when time is available. I knocked off a ton from both lists and this weekend knocked off the last items on the “critical” list – which was replacing lines.
Following the Safety at Sea seminar I decided to expand beyond my personal standing rig inspection and bring out Ray from Rigworks over to do a professional inspection. The result of the inspection is that the rigging is in great condition with no areas of concern and nothing that needs to be monitored (beyond normal day to day monitoring). Was it a waste of money? Nope, having a seasoned professional give me the thumbs up will reduce my anxiety a little bit when the winds kick up.
Since the standing rigging was very dirty from the two years in the working port of Ensenada I had Rig Works send over a couple guys to handle the cleaning.
Quite the climb to the top of the mast to change the Main Halyard
The running rigging was another story…I was flipping the Outhaul and after cleaning the line (and adding a new spice to the end), it disintegrated. This ratcheted up the time frame for looking very closely at all of the running rigging.
Ultimately the decision was to go with safety and I replaced the Outhaul, Mainsheet, Boom Traveler, Jib halyard, Main halyard, and Lazyjack lines. Not cheap, ringing in at about $1,400 but man I would hate to lose the Main half way down the Baja peninsula…
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