Still some things to post about

With the start of the new sailing season, I thought it was time to invest some money into proper equipment. Like these two high end fenders (thank you, kids). I'm not much of a salty dog armchair-sailor so these can remind me which is port (green) and starboard (red).
Also, I made a ring of tube (held in place with a bolted eyelet) on the end of my boat hook to be able to dock with a bit more ease (provided there is a pole on the dockside to grab with the ring).

Below is one of my high end fenders. I can use the loop of rope to drag it to the bow of the float. When not in use I can flip the fender to the inside side of the float. Having a fender at the bow of the boat is the only way to safely dock the boat moving forward.

I also made an extra support for the mast. The hole in the support (see first picture of this post) is to put the maststep-ball into, and locks the support in place. The black strap is double sided velcro. Very handy for tying ropes to the mast. You can buy it at marine stores for $$$$$ but you can also buy it at AV-companies for normal prices (about 2 dollars per meter).

I didn't bother to put a masthead on my mast - can't see the benefit. With a bare mastend it's easy to fix the (in europe) compulsery marking sign for 'long cargo'. The sign is held in place with a piece of 6 mm rod sticking through the mast and secured by two rings.

In the category things breaking: with one float unfolded the pads on the beams sometimes bind/jam a bit. I ground the edges of the pads already, but not enough. When I stamped on the beampad to put it in place, the epoxy glue snapped. Not sure if this happened because the surface wasn't prepared well enough before gluing, or because the epoxy is not flexible enough to handle this kind of peak pulling forces. I will clean and sand the gluing area, and then glue the pad again, using pu-kit-glue. This glue is superstrong but also a bit more flexible than epoxy and won't snap as easily.

We tested the diy roller furler (see earlier post), it seems to work ok. Watch for yourself.

This saturday me and my brother will join a 50-miles doublehanded sailrace. Just for fun. I only have the main and jib, and no lightwind sails so we will probably be smoked by at least the other 8 multihulls which will be in the race.