sancarlosmexico
New Member
Hello everyone. First of all, I wanted to give thanks that this forum exists. I hope to become a long term member and look forward to learning from everyone on board.
This is my 1st post. I purchased my first Sunfish last week at a great deal and the next day I decided to take her for a spin. I had a great time but I need to make a repair and I also believe it would be good to upgrade a few things. I live on the Sea of Cortes across from Baja California Mexico in the state of Sonora so most of my sailing will be on the ocean. The sea is pretty calm but if I ever expect to get anywhere, I assume I´ll be heading out on windy days which means the water will more than likely be choppy with tides coming and going, etc. After some days of thought, I seem to feel that I will need to become very proficient or else I may be in for some trouble.
Since I have an older model (1976 Bicentennial Edition?) I´ve noticed that my hardware is pretty basic. No cleats or ratchet pulleys or anything like that. I only have a simple hook that is circled below. I´ve been reading all over the internet and there seems to be an assortment of hardware that varying Sunfish/Lasers use. What do you think is best for my application? I would like to be realistic with my budget since its a new hobby. Ideally, I would like to maybe travel to the next town which is about 20km one way. This is a long term goal so I´ll initially just practice around the beach here.
As for the repair portion, the tie down at the rear of the Sunfish broke loose. I had the rear end of my sail swiveling back and forth on the rope at that end and before I knew it, the tie down was completely off. At that time, I noticed my sail opened up further and actually worked much better but I was lucky to have a partner helping me while I steered. My question, Should I try to bolt this tie downs in? Or do I need to fiberglass the holes and re-tap them? Is this common?
Thanks in advance. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Cordially,
Marco