Tight is Right

One memory of the Gorge Worlds was Bora pounding his board into the well with a rubber mallet. Yes, the M2 has tight fitting components, one of the reason they're so fast. Amac gave me some ideas on making the hull opening match the strut and when I returned home I had followed them to create a somewhat tight opening. But after sailing off the beach for the past month (sand is a pain!!!) I found there was increasing slop. So I removed the well cassette and rebuilt it to create a tighter fit. The mallet wasn't required, but the board doesn't slide in and out easily. Even with some McLube, it's a challenge to put in and out. I believe that tight is good.

At any rate I got in another couple of hours of sailing this morning in a healthy breeze.  After diddling around Willoughby Bay for a bit I took a trip across the harbor to Hampton. Interesting with the north breeze and the strong current in the channel. Waves were in the 2 foot range and the board/wand/height adjustment seemed to work fine.

Now the problem is with the rudder system. There's way too much slop, so much that I'm going to have to disassemble the works and try to tighten things up.  Bill made a comment that jibing is next to impossible with a sloppy rudder system And there's so many places that play can crop up, from the pin on the gantry, to the tiller/rudder head connection (I've long discarded the rudder cassette idea), to the internal worm drive.  My rudder problems were exasperated when the gantry exploded at the Gorge last year. Who remembers sailing/swimming the boat in rudderless?