Splashed her this past Thursday, into Siltcoos lake near Florence OR where she'll be for a while at Westlake marina. Got an hour or so shakedown cruise in. I added mainsail leech telltales. Highly recommend it! It has already during the shakedown cruise improved my ability to trim the main well. Especially when a well drawing jib is back-winding the front part of the main, it looks like I was often sheeting in the main too far. Makes it look like the main is drawing better, but the tale the telltales tell is no, it's stalled out. Even if as much as the front 1/3 of the main is soft and fluttering from jib slot air, that's fine, the leech telltales are streaming. As soon as I sheet in main to try and 'fill the belly' of the main, it starts to stall. Also I set up a telescoping rear mast crutch, as in that video of a Catalina mast raising someone posted here a while back. Works great, also highly recommended, especially if you are raising/lowering mast solo. Two main benefits: 1) with the crutch raised up before sliding the mast base back to the step, the shroud spreaders stay in front of the crutch. No need to lift them over the crutch. 2) the starting point for raising is higher than I could lift one-handed, and considerably more stable/secure than me lifting one-handed. It's high enough that the pulpit is adequate to lift from, though I used a post a foot or two higher anyhow as I don't like to stress the pulpit that way. I took a couple pics of the crutch in action, will take a few of the details and post later on. Next mod for the trailer is a telescoping front mast crutch. Down for transport, keeps the mast weight off the pulpit. Up for raising/lowering, providing a raise/lower line attachment point several feet higher than the pulpit. And while the trailer has no boat on it...some assorted trailer maintenance and improvements, the biggest one being rebuilding the front end to have a telescoping tongue. On shallow ramps (like Westlake on Siltcoos) my rear bumper is in the water and my exhaust is blowing bubbles and I can still barely get her off the trailer. cheers, John -- John Schinnerer - M.A., Whole Systems Design -------------------------------------------- - Eco-Living - Whole Systems Design Services People - Place - Learning - Integration john@eco-living.net - 510.982.1334 http://eco-living.net http://sociocracyconsulting.com