RECONSIDERING ROSIE'S RIG

It was a typical hot Mississippi day when I walked into the Ocean Springs Yacht Club to cool off. I had just spent two hours bent in half while working inside the cabin of my West Wight Potter 15. I was stiff and drenched in sweat but feeling proud of myself. I had just turned Rosie into a lateen-rigged catboat.

- A.G. Monaco

Despite having to drill through the deck twice (yeah, I misjudged the placement of the first hole), I had completed the installation of a new sleeve to hold an unstayed mast. I was about to order a cold drink when an over-served club member asked me, “Why are you putting a toilet on your boat?”

Earlier I had drawn some attention when I laid out all my materials on a picnic table in the club’s parking lot. You would have thought we were running an art auction the way everyone kept pointing at my supplies and whispering to each other. I chalked up the attention I was receiving to the fact that my fellow club members were all catamaran sailors and they rarely interacted with folks who owned little Potter 15s.

I had been forced to reconsider Rosie’s configuration after being the victim of an unfortunate nautical mishap that left me treading water five miles off the shore of Mississippi. The cause of the mishap was ...rigging. Rosie was getting harder to manage as I was getting older and I was taking dangerous shortcuts.

While Internet opinions abound about switching the P-15 to an unstayed rig, none of them seemed helpful. At least not for a guy with very few tools and even less skill at using them. (As an economist I can do calculus; I just can’t cut anything in a straight line.) So I had to invent a new way to modify Rosie that required no skill. After reading a few captions under many pictures, I decided to just “wing it.”That meant walking down every aisle of Home Depot seeking inspiration.