With plenty of snow on the ground and Christmas behind us, I've stored Albacure out in the backyard until it is time to bring her back into the garage to work on her. The list of things to do include:

• the centreboard to re-finish it.
  
• once we're into warmer weather I will be able to re-paint the hull and fix some parts that need attention.
• rebuild the trailer with a better and simpler set-up for transporting the boat
• fix up the sails with new numbers

If all goes as planned, I might be out in late April or early May. In the meantime, skiing is my hobby!

We had too many other things to do this weekend so I could not go and visit the Canadian Albacore regatta in Kingston. Instead, two of us went out sailing on Saturday afternoon, with mixed success. We got stuck in a shallow area and gust blew us over - first capsize, and the water is getting a little cold.
I still have a lot to learn, and there are problems with the boat. The rope to keep the rudder down kept popping up. The vang is too far back and interfering with the centreboard. There seems to be a rotten piece of wood under the transom which will need to be look at this week. And, lastly, I didn't have enough weight to right the boat! All in all, some scrapes and some more work to do, but quite an adventure for my second time out.

Uffa Fox.
The designer of the Albacore.

My wife and I went out for the first time with the Albacore from Shirley's Bay. I don't have photos because I was focusing on the sailing. I will post some next time. We got back just before the rain started, but the wind was good and we enjoyed being out on Lac Deschenes. Everything worked well, but I still have some questions about improving the boat.

I don't have pictures, but I also did some epoxy work on little chips in the hull. Using West System is so easy - and tough.









A couple weeks ago I made a dinghy dolly out of EMT conduit and some small tires from Princess Auto - a great place for trailer parts. I hope it can handle the weight of the boats.





I also added a 800 lbs. winch, since I don't think I can get the Albacore on the trailer without quite a bit of help.

I rigged up the boat yesterday when there was no wind. The jib halyard works fine. The boom vang (4:1) was easily rigged and the mainsail went up easily. I have a make-shift cunningham at the moment, but I'd like to see how others tighten the mainsail. I think this enough rigging for now. I'll sail it as is, but over the winter I might improve it some more.

The sails were from another boat - 7746 - but mine is actually 7786 - I need to replace the sail numbers!

I added some straps for the mainsheet along the boom, replaced the blocks, and replaced the traveler. This was easily done. I used 3/16" rivets for the straps.