Sunday 3-25-06 sailing Sea Puppy

Went sailing with Ben on sea puppy wind 15 to 20 with white caps.. 1 to 2 foot seas… We left late morning and got back around 6pm.. I rigged the Jacklines (red webbing running from babystay attachment point to the port and  starboard aft cleats.)

on Sea Puppy and both me and Ben clipped in once we got out to the ocean. His tether is one of the commercial 100+ dollar ones with the high speed locking mechanism. I pulled this information off defender.com for it

Safety Tether With stress indicator Stainless steel snap shackle Item #:  552025 Manufacturer:  WICHARD Model #:  7007 Shipping Weight:  1.00 Lbs.   '); else document.write(''); // end --> List Price:   $162.20 Our Price:   $126.99

He really doesn't like it. The yellow end that goes around the jacklines doesn't slide well on anything he has used... it binds on jacklines made of line. It does better on flat webbing but not much better.. I wouldn't want it.

In contrast the tether I made the night before out of the left over material from the Jacklines. It is much beefier than the comercial on he was using and the jacklines ran through the locking carbiner on the end of the tether with ease. I am going to change out the carbiner that is attaching it to my harness for a snap shackle that can be released under pressure though..

The harness is made out of the remains of the 2 inch tubular webbing I used for the jacklines. I put the largest flat elastic I could find at wall mart in it to bunch it up and sewed it up with a normal sewing machine.. This webbing actually sews fairly easily. However I really would like a comercial or heavy duty machine as I think it would have done even better. Each line of stitching I did at least 6 to 8 times .. just to make sure 🙂 the lcoking carbiners were on sale at the rock climbing site I bought the webbing at. I paid about 7 dollars apiece for them. The elastic was 2 dollars apiece for the 2 packs I used. total cost so far is about 24 dollars.. by the time i put a snap shackle on it i estimate 30 to 32 dollars.

The sailing was great and we did do some foredeck work where the tethers made it more comfortable to go forward out of the cockpit. We used them constantly from the time we exited the inlet and went out on the ocean... I have to say that I thought they would be much more in the way and a hassle than they were. I used the 6 ft leg on my tether and it would stretch across the cockpit without haveing to be moved from one side to the other on tacks and it didn't get in the way of handling lines and such.

The winds started in the 10 to 15 knot range and as the afternoon progressed the winds started to pick up.. by mid afternoon we had put in the first full reef and were still doing 6+ knots with the 100% jib. We followed the casino boats out and cruised by one about 5 miles offshore before turning back torward the inlet. All in all it was chilly but fun day.. Ben is a very good sailor and I picked up a couple nice bits of sailing experience from him.. lol and gave him a close look at his competition 🙂 I guess its only fair as I have crewed on his boat Anago (a Lancer 30) before.