Thursday, April 14, 2005

April Showers

April is living up to its reputation of being a month of showers. Hardly a day has passed without a sprinkling of rain – all very good for the garden, but not so handy for fitting out the boat.

Today I had hoped to finish the sheeting arrangement for the junk sail. Last time I visited the boat I forgot to take the rigging plan, and I couldn’t remember how the various mainsheet blocks were attached to the sail before I removed it for the winter valet.

Sometimes things just don’t go according to plan. The wet weather was not entirely to blame for today’s hiccup, but as I had arranged to meet a sailing friend and his wife at the boat to demonstrate how the sail supposed to work, I really wanted to be there to greet them. Unfortunately, two unexpected visitors arrived at my home just before I was about to set off for the boat. I tried to contact my sailing friend to say I would be late, but he and his wife must have already left. A few moments later the rain poured down. So I was on the phone again to let my friend know the excursion to the boat was off. Needless to say, I was greeted a second time with the answer phone. My pathetic message was one of apology saying I had to cancel the sail demonstration because there was no way I was going to hoist the sail in the rain. There’s nothing worse for creating conditions for mildew than to have the sail wet when bagged up under the sail cover – so it was a no go situation.

Sadly I could not contact my friend to tell him. As the rain continued to fall, I could only hope he would put two and two together to realise why I was not at the boat.

If April runs true to form I’ll have to work between the showers to complete fitting out ‘Bumper’ for her summer cruise.

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