Estrellita Does Circus Tricks

  


Perhaps I should say “Estrellita attempts circus tricks”. We have been having a lot of fun with our aerial silk set up. We have hoisted it 3 times and have practiced some basic climbing techniques, basic descending, some rest positions and some foot locks. Caveat: We are learning from sketchy instructions found online and relying on our own knowledge of climbing and sailing rigging to keep our set up safe enough for our personal comfort level.


We know very few moves, perform them poorly, and are enjoying the hell out of ourselves. It is an intense workout and it doesn’t take long before we are shaking with exhaustion. It is a great feeling and one we don’t get often enough in cruising. The only bummer is that you really need less than 7 knots of wind and so we can’t do it as often as we would like. I wonder if we should have purchased a corde lisse (the rope they climb in the circus). Maybe someday…

We had friends and fellow climbers from SV Cariba come over for some play time and Gabriel showed us what prior gymnastic training can add to our repertoire.

We rig by putting our boom out to starboard, setting the silks up on the main halyard behind the mast, and rigging a second line to a winch and cleat in the cockpit to pull the rig aft of the mast so we aren’t banging into it. In this picture the green line is our main halyard and the white and blue line is the one going back to the winch.

The top piece of hardware is an appropriately rated climbing swivel, connected to a figure 8 with tails by a locking carabiner.

The wrapping of the silks on the figure 8 can be found online in a few places.