Rigging Your Melonseed Skiff
1.) Locate your pieces: mast, sail with spars, halyard, sheet with crossbar, downhaul, wind vane, dagger board, and rudder.
2.) Attach wind vane to mast.
3.) Run halyard through masthead sheave and temporarily secure both ends to cleat on mast.
4.) Insert mast into the mast step, with the black cleat to starboard.
5.) Install sheet block assembly on seat track, about 4.5’ behind mast. See Figure 1.
6.) Unpack sail. Place in boat with rubber bumpers on boom lying to port of the mast.
7.) Tie halyard to upper spar between the two white lines, using two turns and three half hitches. See Figure 2. Run other end of halyard through the fairlead of the cleat on the mast and tie a stopper knot.
8.) Fasten boom tether around mast.
9.) Attach the downhaul to the eye strap behind the mast step. Run the line attached to the lower block through the block on the boom immediately behind the rubber stoppers, through the lower block, to starboard through the small turning block on deck (see Figure 3), through the fairlead aft, and through the jam cleat. Tie a stopper knot and leave slack.
10.) Attach the mainsheet: Clip to eye strap on crossbar, run up through the block at the midpoint of boom, then down through the swiveling cam cleat. Tie a stopper knot and leave slack.
11.) Hoist the sail. Make sure boom tether slides freely, and that downhaul and sheet don’t bind. Once the halyard is cleated off, snug the downhaul.
12.) Final check. Your rudder is hung with lanyard secured; your dagger board is ready to deploy; your lines are clear. Time to shove off!
13.) Insert your dagger board into the dagger board trunk and secure with the hold-down cord.
