What's that sound?

To truly understand the lows you have to first experience the highs. And I went from the crest to the trough as fast as gravity could take me yesterday.

Here's the crew at 11AM:


My brand new mainsail was on, had been hoisted, and only needed one little thing tightened before the jib was being hanked on and we were going sailing. After the photo above, I said, OK, let's tighten up that gooseneck (which I had only hand tightened earlier). Got out the 7/16 wrench and socket and went to it. About 15 seconds in, *crack* ......"what's that sound?" "did the wrench slip?" "don't know, but I have to tighten it a bit more" then, Bob says, "maybe you got it a bit too tight" :



Now, I'm not that strong but I cracked the pot metal with a simple little twist of the wrench. This led to a 6 hour chain of events that did not include sailing but did include ample amounts of time on Highway 80, hardware stores, West Marine, holding my head in my hands despondently, and finally at 7PM a fixed gooseneck.

If there weren't a 4-day weekend looming, I would have shanghai'd Bob right then and gone sailing. But we lived to sail another day.