Testsail yippee....but no wind

Ugh. We got ready to take Silverminken out yesterday, had about 3-4 knots of wind, but when we attempted to hoist the spinnaker it all but disappeared. Disappointed, but then again - I got to take her out for the very first time! Fog, rain, no matter - this is awesome!

She was parked in her new berth next to an Elan 380, and let me just say that looking at the 310 from the stern is awesome! Hit the title for more.

We'll just have to keep looking for wind.

Silverminken was measured, the windex adjusted and all the new ropes were brought along. It will be cool to test the Antal fairleads to see how well they perform.

Measuring....

Here's a view of the cockpit. You can see the exposed backstay under the tiller. We are testing out some different blocks. Umm....well, we were going to test some different blocks.

You can also barely see the antal ring used in the backstay to the right. Cool stuff! We used one under the tiller too.

Another view from the cockpit. All in all a great day even if we didn't get to sail very much (5 minutes in just a few knots).

So, while we were there we decided to calibrate the instruments. We did the usual turns and adjusted the log and all went well.

The engine ran smoothly and quietly, making 7.5 knots on flat water (with adjusted log!), even without digging in. Cool.

So, there she lies, just waiting for some wind.....

Other stuff to be done is that the backstay flicker is too stiff. We are going to replace it with a softer one, and we still have to check out the backstay stuff.

....Kjell Inge made some lame remark about the spinnaker looking like an emergency sail - the orange my daughter requested was quite bright.....hehe.