Much preparation for the pending Tasmanian cruise has been underway over the last couple of months. Lots of bits and pieces have finally been installed and some additional safety related kit bought in.
Late October the rigging was examined and tuned by a Batemans Bay outfit during which process it was discovered that the cap shrouds were not correctly fastened to the top spreader end caps. Enquiries revealed that to date all the Sydney launched Catalina's have been set up this way, although I suspect that won't be the case in the future. This issue has been corrected. While the the rigger was up there some additional LED masthead nav lights were installed.
Today the final stage of tuning the rigging was undertaken with a test sail in winds ranging up to 25 knots. We sailed with full sail, one and two reefs to see how the mast behaved in the various wind strengths and it went well. Only a slight increase in backstay tension was required over the settings previously established at the dock.
