P-15 Sail Slugs Continued, brief cruising notes.

Derek Jensen (djensen@teleport.com)
Sun, 12 Sep 1999 11:07:40 -0700


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West Wight Potter Website at URL
http://www.lesbois.com/wwpotter/
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Potters,

I have just returned from 5 glorious days of cruising on the South Puget Sound.
This was my first extended solo journey aboard "El Nino", and was one
of the driving factors for installing sail slugs on the main. I needed to be able
to quickly raise the sails, while staying in the cockpit, and that need was
satisfied in spades.

The only real problem I had with the sail slugs is that they still bind when
dropping the sail. I bought some silicone lubricant, and that seemed to
help a little, but the large batten is still binding. I put a bolt through the
plastic batten sleeve and batten to hold it firmly in place, and put a
bunji cord system to hold it in, but I still get some binding as the sail
comes down. My slugs are about 6" either side of the batten. What
is the consensus for how far the slugs should be from the batten?

All in all, the trip was great. The GPS trip meter says I went 54.17 nm, but
I had to turn it off for one leg of the trip, so I certainly went farther than that.
Met some great people, ate good food, sailed more than I thought I would,
caught alot of sun, and used less than 2 gallons of gas total. My ports of call were:

Zittles Marina, Johnson Point: Launch

Joemma St. Park: Mooring buoy for the first night.

McMicken Island: Mooring buoy for lunch and beaching for exploring.

Jarrell Cove: Mooring buoy for the second night.

Mayo Cove: Mooring buoy for the third night.

Eagle Island: Mooring buoy for the fourth night.

Derek Jensen
p-15 #694 "El Nino"
Portland, OR