The week's project progress was truncated a bit by the three day weekend I spent in LA with Carol and friends as well as by all the time frittered away Jousting with bureaucrats, filling out forms and running related errands. Although I completed another eye splice around a heavy duty stainless thimble for the drogue bridle, the poor result brought to a head the second thoughts I'd been having about the eyes resulting from the Samson fid kit method. The core end is simply pulled into the cover at the throat. If you're lucky, it looks okay, but really is a weak spot. With the thimble, the core went in too far, leaving a couple of inches that were cover only. No good. I will redo all the splices with new line using the more complicated, but stronger method developed by Brian Toss. I will use the original line and splices for dock lines that will have much lower loads than the drogue. About the only other project I got done was installing screens on the cabin-top hatches.
A few more pieces of gear came in, and the remaining line and cones for the drogue are on their way from Ace Sailmakers. Still no progress from the local sailmaker, and no callbacks from the Coast Guard regarding my modified documentation or from my insurance company about final settlement for my claim re: the Mini. I did read a piece in Latitude 38 indicating that it would be okay to use documentation numbers rather than hull identification numbers on the Mexican TIP form, so I should be okay even if it does take six months to get an HIN added to the documentation. I also need to get the Mini smogged so I can renew the registration. Sigh. Still making progress, but it's definitely like climbing a sand dune!
No comments:
Post a Comment