USA 724-Mini: Tuesday

Well I have been here now over a week, I am really enjoying France. True, the weather has not been the greatest but it is still a nice place to be. It only rained part of the day today so my feet are almost dried out and the laptop on my lap is helping to warm me up. Probably the biggest challenge has been internet access so apologies to anyone who was hoping for more frequent updates. As things seem to be working well today, I am trying to get a little bit caught up. My french is still poor but I am doing a little better each day.

Have been busy with the boat every day, typically lots of small jobs that make me think of another small job and so on and so on.....

Last Friday I went with Sylvain from Demi-Cle in his inflatable to AOS Lorient. The facility is right next to the U-boat pens from WWII. A very awe inspiring place. Lorient is a definite center of sailing. The most notable boat that was there was the new Banque Populaire the maxi Trimaran. The boat is somewhat put away with a lot of the parts off and the covers all on. The rig was fully canted over to port so the port float would stay in the water and not ride up on the dock. The dyneema strop for the shrouds that leads from the composite cable over a sheave in the float to a built in hydraulic cylinder is at least 1.5" in diameter, possibly more.

I am going to try a modified jib lead system on my boat from what is on hull #1. I am doing a system where one line controls the fore and aft and another controls the lead angle. I feel this will be easier to duplicate setups and to make changes and keep things correct more of the time. This is especially crucial when I'm tired.

Tomorrow we take the boat to AOS to hoist it out to allign the rudders and apply the bow numbers. After that, weather permitting, we'll take the boat for a short sail.