During my first season sailing
Solitude III, I made a number of
upgrades, though I have to admit I didn't get nearly as far through my
to-do list as I had hoped. But, every little bit helps.
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| Mainsheet cleat |
I singlehand
Solitude quite a bit. With one hand on the tiller and one on the mainsheet, there are times that a singlehanded captain can find himself willing to give anything for another set of hands, at temporarily. Like, for example, when said captain is out on an after-work cruise, and would like to eat the sandwich he brought for dinner! Of maybe the jib needs tending. Or a light jacket needs to be retrieved from the hinterlands of the cabin. The PocketShip manual makes a big fuss about never cleating off the mainsheet in a small boat, though I suspect that this is to prevent a calls from yokels who cleat their mainsheets in a 25kts breeze, go below for a 10 minute nap, capsize, and then promptly call the designer asking why he didn't warn them. Anyway, knowing that my judgement is a little better than that, I decided to install a cam cleat base for my mainsheet. Now I can trim the sails.
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| The tiller clutch |
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| GPS |
Also on the workload-reduction front, I added a tiller clutch to my tiller. This also provides a spare hand, especially when under power. It has proven particularly useful when baiting my fishing hook. :-) Rule #1 is that this doesn't get used at the same time as the mainsheet cleat.
One other project that has already proven immensely useful, despite being only half-done in the installation of the GPS. I say half-done because the unit is also a depth sounder...I simply haven't installed the transducer for it yet. I mounted the GPS to a wooden bracket that slips over the lip of the companionway. The wire run from under the cabin sole, though they have yet to be neatly routed up to the companionway...like so many others, that is a project for another time.
