Lesson No. 2 Learned the Hard Way

Lesson: When you use the winches, only wrap the line around it two or three times, then pull the end of the rope to tighten. Otherwise, your line will foul.

Price of the Lesson: A new main halyard, or about $90.00. It also cost William a trip up the mast. And it blew any chance I may have had for father of the year in 2009.

How I Learned It: After our rough start the first time out, we had a decent time sailing. Then we headed in.

I lowered and doused the Genoa uneventfully, then I went to the mast to lower the main. Unfortunately, the main halyard was fouled. After fighting it for about a half hour, sailing back and forth with Principessa at the helm, narrowly avoiding a collision with a 50 or so foot sportfisherman, I gave up. The halyard was not coming down.

So I did the only thing I knew to do. I took out the rigging knife and cut the halyard. The sail dropped into the lazyjacks, and we motored to the slip.

Now here's the problem. When you cut the halyard off and the sail drops, the end of the halyard likewise goes up about 25 feet above the deck.

How do we get the end of the halyard to pull it down? Well, we get a rock climbing harness, put it on our oldest son, and haul him up the mast using the jib halyard. Like this: