With the help of you all and expecially Eric and Airborne I finally got the family in the water. Here are two pics from last weekend's sea trials:) We pulled away for spring break in San Diego and spent three days shaking down our vintage (1976) Nacra.

Some of you may recall I bought an older 5.2 late last year. Spent what seemed like forever just restoring the trailer, then focused on the boat. Airborne's sails, blocks and spares really made this possible.

My son took to sailing quickly. You can see him here at age 10 on the trap. Most of the time I had to pry the tiller from him.

I now have a short list of minor fixes before we begin the real season in earnest. Yahoo!

Dean

Future sailor...son on the trap...

Future sailor taking control...

Very cool. Thanks for sharing.

That's fantastic enjoy yourself and keep the smile on your Son's face. I crewed on boats (mainly cats) with my dad for ten years and it gave me many of my fondest memories of time spent together.

Nice one.

That's awesome. I can't wait until my son is old enough to go sailing with me. At 4 He's already asking when he can go out. He doesn't understand that just because he can "swim" in the bath tub doesn't mean he can swim in the bay. <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Very Nice! Good work.

Get him a really nice PFD. Thats one way to get him to wear it... that its the only way he'll get on the boat!

Worked for me!

Clayton

Thanks for the encouragement. On my list of updates/fixes includes a better method of securing the reat trap line when not in use. The previous owner ran a bungie across the rear of the tramp. This puts the rear trap blocks right in your face, so I will have to move then somewhere else. We tried securing them to the front trap bungie that runs through the front beam, but that just made it difficult for untangle...

Everything is hanging off a single mast tang with one hole. I recall that my other 5.2 had a second mast tang below the main shroud purchase for the trap lines. Something like that would sure look better and make the lines easier to sort.

I have to do a little work on the rudder pulls. I installed two cleats per rudder - one up/one down, but it is harder than the stock internal bungie setup. It seems to be most difficult under way to raise the rudders. On the beach/trailer it works like a champ. I suspect something is binding. Hate to go back to the bungie only system.

I just could not get all the wrinkles our of the main with the stock downhaul (2:1). My plan was to try to cobble together a few blocks to see how much additional downhaul is needed before commiting to an expensive system.

For those that followed my "remote-controlled-mast-stepper" that was a big hit with my wife. Even though it took twice as long to raise the mast, there was very little stress. Holding the mast while I hooked up the stepper took a little longer that I expected this first time. She asked if I could bring along a small tripod to set the mast on. I guess ideally, she would desire that the boat rig itself... I'll have to think about that. She did have fun.

Any thoughts are appreciated.

Dean

very nice, my son, (in june he will be 4 ) last summer did not want to go onboard, he was afraid of deep wather, now dont pass week ,that i dont hear :that this year he will go sailing with me and he is not afraid any more <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

very nice healey, just back from a long, hot, holiday to find the mountains around our house still covered in snow, so i won't be getting my 5.2 wet for a few more weeks:o(

i notice you've still got the original forward pulling bungee to hold up the daggers. most owners seem to have swapped over to the side loading bungee. presumably to clean up the lines and lessen the wear at the ends of the dagger wells and slow difficult to repair water leaks...got some pics about somewhere...