This is our wind vane and I am holding one of the weather cloths. We got these two items from the former owner a couple of weeks ago. We attached the wind vane while we were on the hard, much easier than doing it while balancing on a dinghy in the water. 'I had to repair the weather cloths, seams were going and some of the gromets need replacing. They are now repaired and on the boat, HORRAY.

We hooked up the wind vane lines last week and then went out on the weekend to see if it would work. We think we got it hooked up right, by looking at the pictures and reading the manual that came with it. Every wind vane is mounted on each boat differently because of how the steering and the stern is designed. Fortunately the wind vane had been hooked up before, and we just had to figure out how to attach the lines. This involved me stuffing myself in the aft lazerette with Barry in the cockpit pushing the lines through to me and then put them around pulleys and leading them back through a hole in the stern so they could be attached to the wind vane. Barry got in the dinghy and we stuffed lines into the aluminum tubes so they could attach to the vane. ANYWAY, we tried it out. You have to make sure your boat is balanced with the sails when you set the vane, fortunately Cat's-Paw IV seems to sail itself and track quite nicely so there was no problem getting it balanced, then we engaged the wind vane. True to our natures, I thought the wind vane was working beautifully, the boat sailed for about 10 minutes on track. Barry thought the boat was doing it all by itself and the wind vane wasn't doing anything. We then tried other things, but the wind did not co-operate ( it was suggested that when you are learning you should sail in 10 - 15 knots) so we packed it in and went back to the slip.

We are having the propane line repaired today. A whole new line has to be put in from the propane locker to the stove. The former owner when he put in a new stove, he put an addition on the existing propane line, which is a definite no-no. We decided since it was propane and the insurance might be void if we did the work ourselves,, to get a professional to do it, besides I have an irrational fear of propane and would not feel comfortable unless it was done properly.

Barry installed a new clutch for our main sheet yesterday. This involved taking the ceiling off the aft cabin, no easy task. You have to take out wooden plugs to get at the screws and after much hammering and digging around with screwdrivers and whatnot we got to the screws and got the ceiling off. Barry then went and had an aluminum backing plate made for the clutch and we placed it in a good position on the cabin top and bolted it down. We were quite pleased with ourselves that we had managed the job, without paying anyone to help. We had a drink to celebrate that night. We went to raise the main the next day and low and behold the $#^%$*) clutch didn't work, shit, had we bought the wrong kind??? Well, we had a look at it and sure enough it was on BACKWARDS!!!! Back to the drawing board, at least we hadn't gotten around to putting the wooden plugs back in the ceiling. Barry turned it around no problem and now it works beautifully. Don't you just love learning how to fix stuff!!!