All Winter Long

Boy do I feel weird right now. The sail is finished.

 All done. I still have shit to do to set up the sailing rig but the sail making is over, the canvas work is all done, the mast hoops are bent and seized with marline to seven of the fifty grommets, the reefing patches, cringles and crow's-foot points are all on there, and all the earrings are where and how they are supposed to be, with keckling all complete.

First I bent the shaved-down-flat cedar branch a little then I boiled it in a stew-pot on the stove and then put on my gloves and hot-bent it some more and then when it was like I wanted it I  seized the ends with fine copper picture wire. Out of the twelve I bent, only one broke.

There were 48 grommets when I started marling the mast hoops.  You would think they would be pretty much everywhere you could possibly need them. You would think. #s 49 and 50 hold the uppermost and lowest hoops. Oh well.

I fitted the mast to the sail, and it fits. I was worried last fall that the sail would be too big but it is not, every step it shrank, all the folding and seaming and hemming let alone three hot washes and two  boilings in the big galvanized tanning washtub.

To think I was worried the mast would prove too short. Hah.

The snotter I made last fall is way too short, but I have some 6 strand round sinnet that will do just fine once I seize an eye into one end. The halyard is the one I dipped in the pine-tar/linseed oil last fall. It smells really nice now and it happily is no longer sticky at all;. Nice stuff, and this summer I may treat more of the little ropes with that stuff.

I think I could have got away with the 10 footer for the sprit. However I really like how this one made from a 12 foot  #2 KD  Doug Fir 2x4 came out so fuck it. The sprit is the smaller pole angled off to the right to hold up the upper outer corner of the sail. The snotter is a little rope that holds the sprit and ties it loosely to the mast.

I marked out where the halyard cleat goes, as well as the down-haul thumb-cleat, and the two snotter thumb-cleats  one on the mast and one on the sprit.

Supposedly the pattern I painstakingly made out of cardboard will ensure that this thing snaps right into place so I can slide the mast into its receiver. We shall see.

I have still a couple of things to do like arranging for a steering oar, and possible some sort of a lee board, but that is another project altogether. I'm done with this one. Its a good thing, too. I'm bout half sick of sail making and all that type of nit-picky bullshit and especially:
 fuck grommets.
I'm very happy but like I said before, I do feel weird.