Finally, after more than a year of building, painting, varnishing, and rigging, we were off to the lake. The closest decent lake to Pittsburgh is Lake Arthur at Morraine State Park, about an hour north of home. So on Saturday, May 20th, we took the boat up, checked in with the park office and spent a couple of hours setting the boat up and dealing with last minute details (like rigging fenders). After a week of rain, it was blowing great guns (10-15 mph, gusts to 20+). We were happy to have the ability to reef the main way down. So here's how our day went, the good and the not so good....

Here I am just at launching, annointing the bow with sparkling apple cider (no booze allowed in the park, plus it's what we had on hand - I don't think Goldberry minded). The local sailing club was out in force, racing in the great wind, so we had plenty of onlookers who were very interested in the strange wooden boat.

Tara and I mugging for the camera. After a year we were finally going to go sailing in our own Ness Yawl. Unlike the time we launched her in the river, where we practically had to heave her off the trailer because the water was so low, she floated happily off her trailer.

At the end of the dock.

Such sweet lines - Iain Oughtred really drew a pretty boat. She floated right on her lines (to my eye), with no leaks or other obvious problems. I put one reef in the main and we cast off into the blustery wind. The camera was back in my truck, so I don't have photos of the next few minutes. We zipped away from the dock, getting our bearings in this new boat and steering through an ongoing race. We had just passed the committee boat (about level with the point in the photo above) and were just thinking about setting the jib when we had a little problem with the rig.

The stays are vectran line which is stronger than steel but very slippery. The side stays are seized to mahogany deadeyes. On each side a grommet of vectran is seized to a thimble (which is shackled to a chainplate) and also seized to a lower deadeye. The seizing on the windward grommet (which we had had trouble splicing) gave way under a fairly light load and the whole rig went over the side! Disaster! We hauled the sails and spars back aboard and in less than five minutes the very kind hearted racers had sent their rescue boat over to tow us back to the dock.

When the mast came out of its step it ripped a floorboard in half. We thought we had escaped any worse damage, but when we got back to shore we discovered that the forward end of the boom had been badly torqued during the accident.

The crack is about 15" long, but all the wood is there. I am confident at this point that a generous application of West epoxy and some screws will get it back together again. We have a plan to deal with the rigging issues and are hoping to be back on the water in a few days. It was not the end of the day that I would have hoped for, but the accident could have been much worse. I am not a bad woodworker, but I still have much to learn about rigging.... Sigh.

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