Date: 1/3/2007
Name: Eric Lee
email: ejlee@hotmail.com
subject:
main sheet rigging.


Greetings from Misawa, Japan.

I am near completion on a SJ 21 rebuild. All the hardware came to me in boxes and it has been with the help of a Catalina commodore that I was able to figure out the jib sheeting.

I am ready to work on the mainsheeting. Any idea on when the "Repairs, Fixes & Rigging" will be complete?

My SJ is in Port Orchard, WA. I work as a school teacher and help run a sailing club on a US Air base here.

Thanks,

Eric Lee


I emailed Eric asking what he was doing in Japan and what specific information he needed. He responded with some interesting stuff - thought I'd include some of it as I think some of you might also be interested. -Jim

Jim,

Of many emails to various members on SJ sites, yours is the first answer. Thank you very much.

I am a school teacher - for many years now. I work for the Dept of Defense and teach the children of airmen stationed on this base in Misawa, Japan. I am here for ten months of the year, and spend the lovely summer months in Port Orchard, WA. Here in Misawa, we have a small sailing club - another teacher and I run it for the base. Of course, he and I use the boats more than anyone else. We have a 16 foot American, an 18 foot Yamaha, comparable to a Laser, a 14 foot hobie, two sunfish and a windsurfer.

This is a link to our club: http://home.attmil.ne.jp/b/Sail_Misawa/index.htm

I am a transpanted midwest boy and am learning about salt water. I love it.

I bought my SJ in pieces. The hull had been stripped and repainted, but the only mounted hardware was the bolts and winch for the keel. Everything else was in unlabled crates. I was able to figure out a lot by going to marina, but there are no SJs there. She now has the pulpit, mast step and anchor points for the shrouds and stays. New windows and seals - lights and stainless eye pads for the mainsheeting are on the way, courtesy of Ebay - along with a new Plastimo compass. I am a woodworker, and she now has a new hatch and removable floor.

Previous sailing experience has been in small open boats - up to 18 feet. The SJ is my first day sailer, and I want to learn the basics on her. I don't plan on racing - and doubt she would qualify. The prevous owner added another foot-and-a-half to her stern which includes a very practical kicker mount and a well for stern anchor line. There is a hole in the center where the rudder fits on the original mount of the original hull. (Maybe I am the only owner of a SJ 22-and-a-half.) I want to rig her to sail solo, with the safest, most practical placement of lines for a beginning sailor.

It would be most helpful to have a few photos of:

1. options of mainsheet attachent to the hull - maybe with a bit of explanation.

2. jib lines and placement of hardward to make it easiest for single sailing.

3. Most advantageous mounting location of two winches. (In the crates of hardware that came with the boat, there were two new Scandanavian winches. On Ebay, the pair sell for about half of what I paid for the whole boat, trailer, and a balky outboard. There was a large tool box full of stainless fittings and blocks - more spendy stuff)

And the tieing and threading configurations you mentioned.

Thank you again for responding. I am doing my solo Red Cross sailing book course to learn all the vocabulary, and I practice on our little boats here - well not until April, now that winter has come. But I plan on having all the plans thought through and sketches of where placement of hardware will go. I want to have 'The Illani" in salt water within a week of returning to Puget Sound in June.

Cordially,

Eric Lee

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