Small details—not unimportant details—weather—Wednesday, June 26, 2013.  Waiting on the weather and taking care of some small details.  It has been raining like a Vietnam monsoon.  We even had lightening.  Don’t get me wrong, I have lived other places, and there is nothing as nice as Western Washington in the summer time—which, weather-wise, starts July 12 or so and runs well into October.  Our driest period is the last two weeks of July and the first two weeks of August and even then you have a 24 percent chance of rain on any given day.  The last two days we have also experienced lightening.  My reserved sailing day is Thursday, but the weather report predicts more of the same for tomorrow.

Anyway!  I woke up and realized there was no bow line to help launch and retrieve the boat.  That taken care of, it occurred to me that I had forgotten to add a safety clip to the rudder pintle.  When you look at the ads for sailing dinghys, about 1/5 of them specify that there is no rudder.  There is a reason; when your boat capsizes, the rudder tends to fall out. (At this point a lot of people lose their enthusiasm along with their rudder.)  Rudders seldom float, and even if they do, you are very busy dealing with a boat that is trying to turn turtle,  and you probably won’t remember to retrieve the rudder.  (In fact my rudder looks homemade, but the early C-larks were not quite so refined as one might expect, so I don't really know.)

The solution is simple; fasten the rudder to the boat.  Some people use safety lines.  I prefer a little ring through the pintle. Of course you need to have some extra rings with you at all times.  You can’t attach the rudder to the boat until the boat is in the water--then you can attach the ring.  It is a given that eventually you will drop one of these little rings in four or five feet of water and a bent nail makes a poor substitute. 



This little hummer was hard.  It took patience and cutting oil to drill the hole.

Unfortunately the handyman business* is really good right now with promises made and promises to be kept.  Shooting for next week launch—weather is supposed to be clear and 70 – 80 degrees. (* Accurate home repair: www.jimslosson.com)