Kev n Jens Adventures

Monday, July 10, 2023

The Mainsail and Sailing with New Sails

June 15 - 20, 2023 - After finishing the jib we took a few days break before starting the mainsail. It seemed less daunting but there were still some new things we needed to learn.

Figuring out which pieces go where

The Main has 5 patches (2 extras that are used when reefing the main)

The main has batten pockets, which aren't found on the jib, so we made a practice pocket to be sure we understood how to make it

Thinking about what's next. You can see the card table set up with the sewing machine in the hallway to the dining room, so we had enough room to feed the long pieces through the machine

Our first batten pocket

Double sided tape is put onto the patches to hold them in place while we sew them onto the sail

We spent a lot of time on the floor

All the pieces are together, the batten pockets and patches are sewn on. The main sure takes a lot of space on our living room floor

When we were getting close to the end, our sewing machine died. So we took it apart to see if we could fix it. No luck...we had to buy a new machine (although mine was 20 years old and probably needed replacing anyway)!

The final pieces were the rings at the corners, which we set with a hammer

BRICs ice cream to celebrate being done!

Wow, those sails look great!

Even better out on the water!!

You can see the squares just up from the boom that will be used for reefing when we sail in higher winds. (with the main reefed, there is less surface area for the wind to catch). When used, the sail is pulled down to the squares and ties are put through the grommets to secure the folded part of the mainsail. Extra rings were added on the patches at the reef line that are used to secure the main to the mast and boom.

The sun came out just as we were taking down the sails

Heading back in, after a few hours on the lake

The sailing club

Since I haven't done any posts about sailing prior to our sail making adventures...here are some photos from some of our favorite times on the boat

Ann & Erich

Beautiful evening at the sailing club

We even slept on the boat one night...we decided it was a little tight

Kev floating with a beer

evening sail coming back into the sailing club

Meg & Maddy came for a summer visit!

cheers!

Maddy jumping in

dinner on the boat

Bob & Janet

Kev jumping in

Cap'n Kev (captain hat was a perfect Christmas gift from the girls)

Tuesday, June 13, 2023

Sail Making

Kevin has been on a schedule where he gets up at 4:00AM most mornings. One morning when he got up this early he decided to look for new sails for our sailboat. He noticed that sails are very expensive and thought he could save us some money by buying sails from Sailrite which provides kits so that you can make your own sails. Needless to say, I wasn't thrilled when I found this out and thought maybe it would have been a good idea to mention it to me before buying the sails and maybe we just could start with one sail to see how it goes. Anyway, the very next day after ordering both a jib and a mainsail, we got the shipment from Sailrite. The directions for each sail were 30 pages long. We spent most of the first day, reading the directions and watching Youtube videos (luckily Sailrite had some very good instructional videos). We immediately had questions, and reached out to Sailrite for help, and were given the e-mail of Jeff (who authored the directions) to send any questions to. Every time we came to a section that we couldn't figure out, we'd send off an e-mail to Jeff and would get a response usually in 10-20 minutes. It took us about a week to complete the jib (Jeff told us to start with it, and when we eventually got to the main it would be easy), and for that week we basically ate, slept and sewed. We learned quite a lot about sails (probably more than we wanted to know), but after it was done we really felt like we had accomplished something!

Thursday June 8, 2023 - We spent half the day understanding the directions and then got the sewing machine ready. In the afternoon we put together our first patch and sewed sail pieces together

practicing our zigzag stitch through multiple pieces of sail

Each corner of the sail has a "patch", which is made up of 5 pieces of sail, each a bit larger than the last piece. These patches are sewed together, then sewed onto the proper corner of the sail. This was our first completed patch

The clew patch has webbing sewn onto it with a D ring sewn into the edge of the patch

Sailrite recommended trying to sew on the floor, since the rolled up sails are so gigantic. We tried it and decided we were too old for that and opted for a card table with Kevin feeding the sail through the sewing machine while I sewed.

Friday, June 9th - We worked on learning how to splice rope and sewed the last two patches onto the sail. We also sewed the leech line into the sail.

practice splicing rope onto a thimble

placing the patch to the head of the sail

Saturday June 10, 2023 - We finished the edges of the sail, sewed the boltrope pocket, pulled the boltrope into the pocket, spliced the boltrope onto the thimble and practiced sewing the boltrope eye into place (which we had questions about, so we had to take Sunday off while we waited for a response from Jeff)

tape is sewn around the outside edges of the sail to finish them

These edges are first basted (using double sided tape) to the sail, so it's relatively easy to sew them. My knee pads from our sailing days in NJ on Jitterbug came in very handy for all the crawling around on the floor I had to do.

We rolled the sail, and Kev fed it through the machine while I sewed.

Our first spliced thimble. Part of the sail is cut away so the eye can be hand sewn at the bottom. We weren't sure how to cut this piece.

So we made a mock corner and practiced

We practiced the stitch with some fishing line, and sent a pic to Jeff to see if we had placed it correctly

Monday June 12, 2023 - We spliced the other end of the boltrope and hand sewed all three of the corners

We got the OK from Jeff that we had placed the thimble properly

Our second splicing to the thimble, this time at the head

"hand" stitching to secure the thimble to the sail (it took a hammer and pliers to hand stitch)

Completion of the hand stitching at the tack corner

Brass rings were cut into the fabric inside of the thimbles at the head and tack corners and also hand sewn.

Tuesday June 13, 2023 - We set the grommets behind the boltrope and then added the hanks. WE ARE FINISHED (except for pieces of cowhide that can be sewn over each corner, if we decide to do it)

The first grommet is in place, next the hank goes into the grommet

One grommet/hank done...seven to go

It doesn't look like much from this high up, but that's our completed jib!!

Yay!!!!

Jib done...we're ready to take on the Mainsail!

But first a celebratory ice cream cone at DQ!!!

Tuesday, May 30, 2023

The Indy 500

Sunday May 28, 2023 - We have been trying to get to the Indy 500 ever since we moved here, but it seems like we always have other plans Memorial Day Weekend. This year we decided to make sure that it happened. We bought general admission tickets for $45 and decided to ride our bikes to the race, since it's only 9.5 miles from our house. We packed a lunch, and took a blanket to sit on and headed off at about 7:45AM. Seven and a half miles of the ride to the speedway is on a bike trail (the Monon to the Canal Trail, which runs into Riverside Park and then 16th St to the speedway). We ran into a few other bikers on our ride, but otherwise it was a pretty quiet ride. When we turned onto 16th St, it was packed with cars driving to the race, but we were able to ride our bikes on the sidewalk until we got to about 1.5 miles from the track. At that point there were too many people, so we just walked our bikes. There were bike racks at the entrance and we were hanging out on the mounds at Turn 2 by 9:30. It was fun people watching until the race started at 12:45, and there was a lot going on for about an hour before the race (marching bands, old Indy cars on the race track, fighter jets, and parachutists). We sat and watched the race for about a half an hour and then decided to walk around and check things out. The track is 2.5 miles long, so there was a lot of walking around. There was a concert going on in the Snake Pit, lots of tailgating, a golf course (that people were just enjoying picnicking on) and lots and lots and lots of stands full of people (325,000 people!) We left at about 2:45 and had 16th St all to ourselves. Can't wait to go again next year...why don't you come with us!