Rigging the mainsheet to windward to centre the boom

One of the limitations of the Alacrity often commented upon by owners is the fact it has a horse (the metal bar in the videos below) instead of a mainsheet track. At least one owner has installed a track but the construction has to both go over the tiller and remain strong throughout its length; not the sort of engineering I want to take on, especially as the benefits may be limited in comparison to the effort involved in the installation. That said a track makes it possible to bring the mainsheet to windward in light conditions to improve performance when beating or reaching.

As a compromise I have found the use of the line shown in the videos below to be easy to rig, very effective and easy to release and bring across as Little Grace goes through a tack or, if necessary, once the tack has been completed.

The cooker, porta potty and chart table

It may seem a bit strange to talk about the cooker, porta potty and chart table in the same post but in addition to their separate entities and functions together they become one.

This is how things looked when I obtained Little Grace.

The cooker (obviously): There is no wood under the base plate of the grill to save some weight.

In the space under the cooker there are two washing-up bowls, one inside the other. They just fit through the top of the opening at the front, where I have cut a recess on the right to allow the lip of the bowl to go through. They rest at the bottom of the unit, where there is a plywood base. This means that they and what they contain are secure when we are on a port tack. 

Domestic things are kept in the top bowl and the dinner sized plates live in the bottom bowl.

The chart table: This is just the right size to hold the chart books that are standard here. There is a fiddle and non-slip matting to help hold them in place.

The porta potty (obviously): As you can see the controls are accessible. The unit's hinged lid means the porta potty is used in location. Note that if its use requires that Little Grace is hoved to we will make sure we are on a starboard tack. 

With the lid closed the unit becomes a handy table.........

...... or a handy seat, which is at just the right height, given the low headroom, for working at the chart table. And so the separate units make up the whole.

Also see new stove.

An error of judgment and a neat trick when blown on

I promised that there would be mistakes to learn from on this blog. I have kept quite about them so far but here is one that occurred last weekend.

It was already mid afternoon because torrential rain kept us from setting out earlier. That’s the way we planned it so it was OK; no frustration. Having tacked our way south for 3nm at a rate that dropped 1-2 kts in wind that dropped to less less than 2 kts and sometimes nothing as it backed, we decided to put into a visitors’ berth for one of the cafes that blossom in Finland at this time of year.

On arrival we found the two outermost berths on the cafe's floating pontoon were occupied but there were mooring rings on the jetty it extended from. The water was pretty shallow so I nosed in gingerly. The bottom looked to be covered in silt but the jetty seems to be built over what is charted as a submerged rock and there was no telling how much soft stuff there was to cushion the blow if we touched.

We had just come alongside when Tuulia said it felt as if we had “bumped”. When it came again I felt it too. In the last moments before tying up the echo sounder had stopped giving a reading. Its sensitivity range starts at 1m, as per the factory setting, so I guessed the depth was one meter. I quickly retrieved and used the lead line, which is kept with all those other things that may be needed in a hurry. As expected we had 1m of water all round. With a draft of .55m I was wondering, in a positive way, if we would be OK to stay, given that the Baltic is non-tidal and the Alacrity is designed to be able to take to the ground. Wrong!


At that moment the wake of a powerboat  came in. It had recently passed with all the consideration of one of those German cars driven by people who seem to think they own the road and the rules don’t apply to them and it felt like we  bounced off rather than touched the bottom in each of the troughs. Time to leave and move to another small jetty we have tied up to before!

This was the moment some well meaning but rather drunk Swedish speaking Fins decided to engage us in conversation and pass their opinion as to our predicament. They also offered to walk Little Grace back to the outer berth as it was occupied by their boat and they were leaving. However, I did not like to the look of the corners of the jetty and pontoon as these were joined together by a small bridge some 2 meters away from the edge we were attached to and would have to be walked along. So once our helpers finally relinquished their hold of the shrouds and stanchions I got Tuulia to drop the last line onto the deck and made way.

Tuulia stayed on the pontoon as we had agreed that she would walk round and take the lines as I came in at the other jetty. Our helpers had shown that they were not a danger to Tuulia’s safety, in fact it proved quite the reverse because in their fogy state made worse by the language issues they were concerned that I was leaving her behind on a more permanent basis. Anyway, we carried on regardless and they left in high spirits and full song.

Tying up was uneventful but the chips at the cafe were not up to the standard we so fondly remembered from 2010 . Nontheless they were warm and the stop gave the dogs a break and the trip a feeling of arriving at a destination to return from.

Back at the boat we found the wind had picked up and was pinning us onto the jetty. Springing the stern out was the textbook option but I wanted to try something I had read about on my Kindle in The Complete Trailer Sailor by Brian Gilbert. It may not be anything new to people used to using a transom mounted outboard on a small yacht but I am more familiar with bigger boats where the technique isn't an option, so I was keen to give it a try. In truth I tried it a few weeks ago but there was no wind, this would be a true test.

Tuulia sat on the foredeck, she could have come up through the hatch if conditions were poor, and waited by the bow line, which I had changed to a slip through a ring ashore. I added an extra fender to the pulpit and I removed the stern line and the spring. As predicted from the lack of tension on any of these lines Little Grace remained pinned alongside. I motored back until the bow line tightened, angled the rudder and outboard away from the jetty and increased the power. The intention is that the boat swings out from the where the bow line is attached ashore like a pendulum, a feat made possible by the fact that an outboard can be angled in the direction of travel. The stern came away but Tuulia indicated that the bow was still pinned to the jetty, so I increased first the power and then the angle and we came away. Tuulia was then able to slip the bowline as we backed away. It is a neat trick and worth practicing but it took higher revs from the outboard for a longer period of time than springing off.

The sail home was one long tack at 3.5 to 4 kts, according to the GPS log. Yes the wind, now a steady minimum of 2ms, had swung right round. I was able to stay inside the 10m contour all the way by luffing up in the minor gusts.

Jiffy Reefing

While we were nearly becalmed I took the opportunity to video the newly completed jiffy reefing system. The video is at the end of this post.

I wanted to be able to reef from the cockpit/companionway but did not want to bring more lines onto the coach roof and risk reducing the ability to move about the deck without tripping over something. The solution I used was to keep all the lines on the boom based on the excellent example (click to view in new window)  in the blog for "A Silhouette called Misty". You can see the setup and the fittings I used on Little Grace in detail in the video at the end of this post.

I installed the system I use for the leech, at the aft end of the boom, back in 2010. In this photo you can see the cleat for the second reef of the leech (excuse the tatty ends of the reefing lines - the boat was thrown back together that year). The other side is identical and the reef is achieved by pulling the line tight and securing to the cleats. You can see it in the video below; this time the second reef is hidden under the sail but all will be made clear in the video at the end of this post.

I decided to simplify the aft end in this way because, when reefing, I bring the boom to the center line and can reach the aft end while standing in the cockpit. As reefing the leech is done after the tack and halyard is on the starboard side of the coach roof  there does not seem to be a downside. Once reefed I add an extra line through the clew and around the boom for extra strength.


Until now the system for the luff at the fore of the boom has been the reefing hook that came with Little Grace when I got her. I was not able put the hook in place without going to the mast and that did not make sense because the halyard had been run back to the cockpit by a previous owner. But, for now at least, I will keep it as a backup. I can adjust the gooseneck slide on the mast from the companionway by standing on the edge of the port and starboard cabin seats; I have protected the paintwork accordingly. Note that the gooseneck fitting on the boom is the one that came with Little Grace but the boom itself is new (2010) because the old one was bent.

The video below reveals all.

The Tiller Clutch in action

Here is a video of the Tiller Clutch in action while I took this and the video below. 

A simple downhaul

It turns out that I have spent a lot of time unnecessarily thinking about how to create a downhaul for the headsail. All the advice I have found suggests a turning block between the headsail tack and the forestay but the Alacrity, or a least my Alacrity, does not have a fixing point that allows this. I had come up with all sorts of ideas but I waited until the boat was back on the water to try them because my previous, albeit brief, attempt when little Grace was on the water in 2010 did not work out. This was because 1. the route I tried to use back to the cockpit via the stanchions had too much friction and 2. the block I tried to use kept falling over and snagging when the line was slack.

I spent last weekend on the boat catching up with those things I had not managed to finish before moving Little Grace to her summer berth. I had just finished the new jiffy rigging at the fore end of the boom and had a lot of leftover very slippery 4mm line in my hand when an imaginary line from the cleat for the pole downhaul, through the appropriate bullseye to the bottom of the forestay and use for said leftover appeared before me.

When rigged for the pole the line will go from the cleat via the bullseye to a block just behind the hatch. The uphaul for the pole will be bungee cord attached to the mast. The system used to work well on the GP14 dingy I once owned and as the forces on the Alacrity are relatively low it should work on Little Grace too.  Anyway, it occurred to me, as it had not done before (doh!), that if conditions are such that the genoa is poled out the downhaul will be A unnecessary and B useless until the pole is removed and the downhaul can be brought back to a cleat on the mast. Of course, the headsail will have to come down if the spinnaker or unstayed drifter go up but these will be in light conditions and someone will have to be on the foredeck anyway, so they can hand the jib or genoa too.

I wanted to try getting Little Grace in and out of her new berth on my own so I combined it with motoring out of our little harbour and upwind for 1.5 nms, then turned for home and set the small jib. The jib is so small the foot passes in front of the mast. When the time came the downhaul worked as perfectly as it had when I tested it head to light wind at the berth.

Unusually there was a ship coming up astern and as it is a narrow channel charted as a shipping lane I did not hang around to do more trials. However, it seems that in an emergency the downhaul will work OK at any angle to the wind. In the test in F3 I tried it on the run with the sheet still cleated, which was efficient but not pretty. To bring the sail on deck neatly it will be necessary to round up into the wind, especially with the number one or the genoa.

Captain Grace at the forehatch - but also note the bowline attached to the first hank and that the line simply turns on the same shackle the strop for the foresail tack is attached to.



The slipperiness of the new line may be relevant to the effectives of the system and I may have to replace it every year or so. But this type of white line (it may be the same type used for starter cord for outboards, which is what I used for the jiffy reefing at the aft end of the boom two years ago) is very cheap compared to other types of line.