New Head Stay Coming up!

One of my near term project is a new headstay. I will be using the same size wire, only it will be Dyform wire, which is stronger, and NavTec terminals. So this involves going up the mast, removing a clevis pin, removing the forestay, and then measuring it for some new wire. I could do this after I pull the mast, but while that would be easier, I'd like to have it in place so I can test the furler, and re-cut my Genoa.

Genoa Cleaned

My goal is to do something every day for ECHO. That is not so easy given my other obligations. However it is a worthy goal and one in which I include the many back steps needed to go forward. Today I made a forward step. I took ECHO's #2 Sail, in fact it's Working sail. I guess they called the #1 sail the drifter, which is a lightweight hank on sail--I'll address that later one.

Flopping it out of my truck was easy enough.

Then spreading it out on the driveway.

First the #2 sail is 62' on the luff, 60'3" on the leech, and has a 30'5" foot. To approximate the sail area lets average the luff and the leech. The difference is 21". Half of that is 10.5", so we add that to the lesser of the two the leech and get 61'1.5". The formula for the area of a triangle is 1/2 the base times the height. So the size of the sail is approximately, 15.25' x 61.125' about 932 square feet.

That explained the weight of the sail. I was thinking my Genoa was 78 lbs. Thinking back, I weighed my main and that was 78 lbs and 440 sq feet. So this sail is twice the size, and it is reasonable to assume it is about 165 lbs dry.

I used mild bleach and water in a squirt bottle. I also use Black Streak remover-Oxylic Acid, and Fantastic as cleaners. Later I combined the Black streak remover with the Bleach and water. I used a scrub pad and while I did not get it as clean as I'd like, it is much cleaner than it was.