Hi Folks,

Thanks for the welcome and help on my electrical questions - I'll send a write up of that project at some point soon for the good of the archives!

We got out this week for a shakedown sail (the ice on Lake Champlain had, in fact, melted - it was a rare 94 degrees!), and had one frustrating problem.  Each time we unfurled or furled the main sail, the topping lift line would get caught and wrapped around inside the IMF drum/wrapped sail. The only way to keep that from happening seemed to be to take the topping lift line out of its port-side fairlead and jam cleat, and bring it all the way back to the stern.  The person on the tiller then had to hang onto it and keep it out of the way and tensioned correctly, while the other person managed the furling line and the outhaul.  It seems very unlikely that Stan designed it this way, so I'm assuming it is either operator error on our part (some special trick that we're missing?), or the prior owner rigged the topping lift or IMF mast incorrectly.  Perhaps the topping lift is running through the wrong point up top?  I took a very poor photo - attached - after the issues started.  At this point, we were able to get the topping lift to run freely up and down (raising and lowering the boom), but it is running out through the IMF slot.  I'm not sure if it was doing that before it got jammed up the first time.

The mainsail is quite new, and the prior owner doesn't seem to have sailed it much, so it's definitely possible something was not properly rigged initially.  We did not thoroughly examine this area before raising, so we're considering lowering the mast to check things out.  Any other thoughts on this before we do that?

Thanks!
Rosie
s/v Alkyone (2007)

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