I am looking forward to sailing my M-17 at Sean and Jo's Lake 4 weeks from now!!!!! I can hardly contain myself - charging the battery, checking my lifejacket (where is that whistle)? Repaired my whisker pole - Gotta put a new rivet or screw into the gooseneck casting on the boom, spray my new tapered battens with SailCote, put a new overhead light in the cabin (I think the fluorescent died), Grind the sharp edges off of the Port handrail!!! I have to elaborate here - like I need an excuse to blab - I was fortunate enuf to have an old friend sail with me in January - I was rushed to get the boat ready for the Regatta and didn't "tie-up all ends properly" I left some things 1/2 ast. My port handrail - was not screwed/bolted at the forward end - no biggie me thinks- crew is notified of the deficiency (brand new one that had been steel wooled 9 times with Tung oil to furniture grade finish) You know where this is going - My Guest crew is doing a GREAT job of tacking the 155 in a bit of an increasing breeze and my way cool 3/16" ultra low stretch genoa sheets (crew Hated them) get stuck under the loop of what!?!? WAIT DON"T--------------BANG! Crew says "WHAT was that?" I say - "Don't look that direction - I hope no one was hurt!" - exactly 1/2 of my new 4 loop handrail is FLYING across the fleet (no sailors or boats were injured in the making of this 'story') A little while later Skipper (Still Stupid Owner; we switched roles the next day) is pretty screwed up on course direction to next mark, we decide in a democratic way, we need the whisker pole up - cool - gotta brand new one ----- see any similarity here? Pole up and out, sheet in OOOOPS! Now the boat has some "mistakenly" added lower shrouds (long story - they will be removed) "Improper Restoration Parts" or something like that is what Crew is mumbling again. Pole gets wrapped around forward lower and looks like a 10 foot long letter "L" - darn. Pole down - speed down. It has been repaired to the PERFECT size, this was a blessing in disguise! What did I learn from my last outing? For 40+ years I have spoken at great length with boat builders and designers - bouncing ideas off of them as to 'What if I put this over here and then .....?' I have learned I will PROBABLY not try to improve any of the rigs on my boats as they are highly evolved/tried/tested and I complicate things when I try to change my M-17 from what it is to a tall rig/double lower rig! Leave it alone - Now I have to measure my lowers and send them back to Jerry Montgomery the Rigger extraordinaire - so I don't wrap the whisker pole around them again. Years ago I was racing my newly acquired black M-10 against some guys from California (same Arizona Yacht club -36 years earlier) This guy from California kept asking me "Why do you have your Cunningham rigged that way?" I didn't know it was wrong, I just wanted to beat the guy in the next race -he was still ahead of me by a couple of points! I finished 2nd overall, California Hotshot type dude finished 1st, but that is still one of my favorite trophies- 2nd place to the guy whose initial was on the sail of my boat. Thanks for the great sailing memories Jerry. Lesson learned - Keep It Simple Stupid. Listen to the guy who drew it/built it/wrote it,etc. Have Fun in the process and think MANY times about the consequences of changing something that works just fine. Do NOT stop trying to improve things! Be prepared for 'excitement' if you improve things. This was thrown up to change the subject thread on our favorite list. And I am SOOOOOO Excited to be going to Lake Havasu October 19th-21st to go sailing with Jo and Sean and Dauntless. Got me a good 'Boat Grunt' for crew too- "Frenchie-King of the Goats"! Take Care, Have Fun, Go Sailing GO M-17 #316a Team Geezer Racing.....Old and in the Way Arizona Sailing Squadron ************************************** See what's new at http://www.aol.com