Stepping the Mast

Stepping the mast (putting it back on the boat) went much smoother than we had anticipated.

Joe, the crane operator here at Bert Jabin's lifted it off the saw horses in the yard while four riggers took the foot and carried it over to the boat.

Keeping everything at the correct angle, the mast is brought over the lifelines and onto the boat. Here you see Sasha running to jump in the anchor locker and lend a hand with pulling the wires out the bottom of the mast and through their fittings.

Mike, the owner of Southbound directs traffic by giving the crane hand signals when the guys are ready to lower the mast onto the deck. Jordan is holding the two forestays.

With the addition of four deck lights, a repaired steaming light, a tricolor/ anchor light, and one more VHF antenna it's a tight squeeze for Sasha and Mark to get all the wires fed through the deck.

We've decided to try out the newest technology in rigging. Instead of bulky stainless turnbuckles, our dux stays have beautiful lacing and lashing.

Looking at the size of our mast and the forces at play, Southbound had special stainless thimbles fabricated instead of the typical aluminum.

Mike holds a forestay in place as jordan fastens.

The final and most tedious step which kept the crew around past dark was the all important tuning of the rig. Once the mast is up each stay has to be properly tensioned. This takes hours in the initial process. Next step will be to take her out for a sail and tune some more- looking forward to that either Sunday or Monday!