Breeze On

It is project time. George and I have both been busy working on the list we generated when we were living on the boat. Yesterday's project was fixing the lazy jack lines. One of the plastic circles that is part of the system broke when we were offshore on our way home. George rigged a temporary fix that held up just fine but planned a more permanent fix. He found some "Shocks" on the defender website that should do the trick. They are small, aluminum sheaveless blocks that can have one line tied on the top portion and the other line run through the bottom portion. We believe that will hold up much better than the plastic rings.    George asks if this picture makes his butt look big. Hahaha.   

On June 9 we set out early in the morning for a week-long cruise. Our plan was to sail 70 nautical miles to the Sassafras River in one long day. The winds were predicted to be in the teens so it should have been possible. The winds were less than 10 kn when we started down the Choptank so we were under full sail. After about 5 nm the winds had increased into the mid-teens and we started to think about adding a reef. There is one particularly narrow spot near Oxford that often has much stronger winds than anywhere else on the Choptank. We decided to go ahead and add a reef. I took the helm and George lowered the main halyard. As he was winching the reef line it seemed to be caught on something. We were both trying to sort out where it was hung up. Just as George noticed that it was wrapped around the block at the mast, the main sail came flopping down to the deck and lines seemed to be flying everywhere. I said "what the heck happened?" George said "the lazy jack lines...