Monday, October 11, 2010

Raising a mast

It was a learning experience, some learned more than others... me I learned that we aren't the only ones that have sailboat adventures ;o)

Tony picked up this sailboat as a project... he's in 70's and just this last week got it to the point that he was ready to put the mast up, set the rigging and take 'er out for a test drive.  Being as this was the most exciting thing to happen all week, it drew quite a crowd. Somehow the two guys with the most experience were up top working the lines and the crane thingee *chuckles* they more or less stayed out of the way, keeping an eye on things and mostly just making sure nobody got hurt.

As Frank one of the older guys said, it generally all works out in the end one way or another... every mast raising is different he chuckled... everyone runs around, and eventually it gets raised, despite your actions this was followed by a knowing wink and a smile.



And really that was exactly what happened, the boys got the pin in to hold it up, there was some line and height adjusting, and then it just slid right on home to where it should be.  They all grabbed a shroud and went to attach it to the tackle... and wound up oooooh definitely more than 6 inches too short. Leading me to decide that boats are responsible for the adventure end of things, we're just along for the ride!

Here they are re-evaluating the situation attempting to get *something* to work... adding shackles... nope, checking if the old turnbuckles were longer... nope... this is the 'maybe if I just pull on it it'll be long enough... nope...' *curses*


Eventually they ended up with enough things tied down to the deck, that it was safe to move. The plan they ended up with was getting all the hardware together to get it solid, take it out for a test run and see if there was anything major they were going to change before redoing the rigging in stainless.

I especially like the wobbly looking rig, but there she is ;)

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