Saturday, July 27, 2013

new blocks, new camera, light winds


A very nice, light wind sail today.  It was a chance to use the new blocks on the mainsheet.  The old rig had a 3:1 purchase with a combination of a Ronstan fiddle block and a single harken block.  The new sails from Dabbler have quite a bit more power and I found myself struggling as I sheeted in the main on breezy days.  Spartina now has a 4:1 purchase on the mainsheet with harken 40 mm Carbo Air blocks, a fiddle with a becket and two single blocks.  These seem to be very efficient, smooth blocks with ball bearings.  I think the mainsheet rigging will work well, but the light winds today were not a good test.


I also tried out the new camera, with which these photographs were taken.  A summer day with haze and flat light, it was not the best day to try out a new camera, but I did begin to get a feel for it.  Like new sails, new rigging, it will take awhile to figure out how it all works.

The koi was not in the Elizabeth River.  It was in a pond at the pagoda in Norfolk where I sometimes tie up.

steve

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Among the features on the specs page from www.dpreview.com, I like is the magnesium alloy body, and the optical viewfinder.

Seems to have plenty of spread on the ISO settings.

I'll be looking forward to seeing your comments after using it "in the field" (on the boat).

Thought about trading in my Canon 40D backup for something more compact like yours.