Summer finally arrived late in July. We spent our vacation sailing Blackheart every day. Nothing like 15 days in a row of sailing to get to know a new boat. Most days we enjoyed10 knots of wind and flat water with a few days of 15 - 20.
The only issue that popped up was a fuel pick up problem which I found was due to an exessively long fuel pick up tube which slid up the tank during an acute heeling angle and was lodged there. There is a lot of crud in the tank, so I installed a 30 micron filter/water separator between the tank and aux fuel pump. I'll clean the tank thoroughly this winter.
Our neices and nephews and the neighbour's kids think it's great having a pirate ship moored in front of the cabin flying the skull and crossbones.
Some awesome sailing the past few weekends. Lots of positive comments from neighbours, passing boats and gas jockeys.
Finally got around to purchasing a bosun's chair and went up the mast this weekend to tidy a few things up.
- I lost a jib halyard up the mast some months ago so I fed a line weighted with 1/4" nuts over the sheive and down the mast. This worked like a charm and I was able to thread the new halyard in.
- I also installed a tube type radar reflector at the top of the intermediate shrouds. These were quite loose, so I hand tightened and then added two turns. Leewards are still slightly slack in a 10 - 15 knots so I'll add another turn next time up.
- Inspected all fittings and found no problems
- Taped shoud ends
- Replaced the spinnaker uphaul line
