Last Laugh on ‘Sail”

From the day I bought her, LL always needed a new main-sail. It was old, crunchy, and faded. I have already repaired it twice; one tear happened after I let someone else take the helm momentarily, and the other happened a few weeks ago when I was pulling her down. My finger went right through the headsail and I knew she needed replacing, but waited until the last minute to do it.

A friend of a friend of mine has a boat that dons black sails, and it is SO visible from so far away that I had to get in on the game and incorporate black in my own sail. It’s not practical for my boat to have an entire black set of sails, but it is to have the head of the mainsail in black as it is so far up the mast.

Mark’s sail can be seen and identified as soon as he enters the water, once above the horizon. I have always known his craft by the sail, and it is visible 0-9 nautical visible miles away. His solid black triangle is distinctive, and never mistaken for someone else. On this strength, I wanted mine to have similarly distinctive characteristics.

LL will have her mainsail as white as usual, but then have a black top (head). The second sail ahead of her in the ‘Jib’ will still be white like normal….(apart from blue UV stips fore and at at the base). So what we should see sailing is a typical sloop with white sails, except this one will have a mainsail with black top. See the diagram for details.

-M

P.S I know it doesn’t look much on the screen of a computer…but trust me….on the water, it can be seen and idenified for miles around. I live on VHF 73 when under sail, and that represents the frequency of the ‘local’ authorities from the area where my boat berths. In due course, I will change that according to where I am, and what fequencies are ‘popular’ to the area I find myself.