When it rains in Orlando, it pours big drops that spatter and whack you on the head. It always makes me wish I was on my boat listening to the rain. For some weird reason I have never been a fan of bad weather ashore, but love it if I'm on my boat tucked into some little cove. It's a great place to read or nap away the weather, and with the boat on the hard since the beginning of the year, and expected to be in my side yard for another year, I do miss those little coves.

It rained today; three times, which ruined my chances for spraying the mast. Instead, I epoxied the old roller reefing gooseneck on the Bristol so the boom will no longer rotate. I had disabled the roller reefing mechanism years ago when I converted the boat to slab reefing, but never got around to locking the position of the boom versus the gooseneck. Today I filled it full of epoxy and it sure won't rotate anymore.

The idea of locking the boom so it won't rotate at the gooseneck came to me at a traffic light Friday morning. It was on a list in the back of my head, but hadn't surfaced to cogitate about in years. When I drive to work, it's an hour I use to think about boat projects--I'd rather meditate about engineering solutions to the boat then listen to music--the sign of a true boat nut, I guess. Friday I was driving along thinking about the midboom sheeting attachment, and the stresses involved, and suddenly realized I can't have the boom rotating anymore. It would fuck up the leads for the outhaul that goes forward on the port side to a turning block and down to another turning block at the base of the mast. However, with the boom able to rotate, it means the lead would only be fair when the boom is centerd over the boat. So I have to dredge up all my old thinking about the subject, and start mulling over possible solutions.

Then it rained. So I spent the time with epoxy and some drilling and now the lead will be fair for the outhaul. End of one of about a million little problems.