Happy day!  Charisma has new clothes.  Sails actually, but same, same. (Sails are from Doyle Sails, Aukland, New Zealand.  I have used Doyle in San Francisco and have found them to be of high quality and responsive.  The new sails have lot of nice “offshore” features and I’m feeling good about them.  Will be great to do a shakedown and see how they do)

Starting at the bowsprit. The new yankee jib. We also have a big 130% jib, but this is our new working sail.

Next one back; the staysail (stays'l). Looks similar, but a close look will note that this one is on a boom in the mid-foredeck whereas the previous pic shows the jib on the end of the bowsprit.

And bringing up the rear, the new mainsail. All three are nice looking and we can't wait to get out on the water and try them out.

And…Ann is making some new “anchoring sails”, better known as the bimini and hatch covers.

The sewing machine is getting a workout. Here's the bimini being assembled in the main cabin. Where do we sit you ask? Don't ask.

More projects-I think I finally fixed a leak (knock on wood) that has been vexing us for a year now.  I thought it was the traveller, but turns out it seems to have been the aft handrail.

Yep, another "not fun" project. Taking out the overhead to get to the handrail bolt that needed tightening.

I loosened the bolts on each side of the cabin holding the handrail down, pried them up 1/4 inch or so, squeezed 3M 4600 underneath and tightened the whole thing back down.  Two nights with rain squalls and no leaks so far!

And lastly (for now)-Ann noticed a suspicious leak in the head porthole.  This one looked different.  It was coming in from under the flange that seals the porthole instead of the “more standard” leak through the porthole itself.  This project was low on the list until a lot of other stuff got fixed, but guess what?  A lot of other stuff is done, so today I went after this one.  Good thing.  Ann called it.  A leak that went up under the flange and was rotting the balsa core underneath.  I have taken out the entire porthole (not fun, took three hours) and removed a bunch of balsa core under the upper side of the opening.  I removed about two inches of wet wood and am going to let it dry out then squeeze some epoxy with filler up into the void before putting the whole thing back together.

Another ugly project, but you have to watch leaks as they only get worse over time...Yes, I am holding the porthole that was once embedded in the cabin where there is now just a hole...(click on the picture to see more detail)