Hardstand 2020 Week 2 - Dropping the Mast

We’ve never had to completely re-rig before. Sure, we’d added an inner forestay and replaced the lower outer stays with a heavier gauge but never re-rigged as such or taken the mast down. The crane was booked for 8am and ‘Cookie’ from S&H Spars was there ahead of time with his off-sider to disconnect the boom. To be honest,  we could barely watch and made a retreat to The Galley for our, by now, daily morning coffee and breakfast roll!

Disconnecting the boom

Now to unite the crane boom with the mast

Now just a stump - all gone!

We felt a bit like an amputee with our mast on trestles alongside the boat. Unlikely for this to ever happen again during our ownership of Zofia, it presented the perfect opportunity to rewire the mast. 

When Zofia was first commissioned, the first of a series of what we term as ‘axe-murderers’  , practiced their sloppy arts. A so-called ‘Marine Electrician’ ran cable up the mast but not specialised tinned cable, just regular 3 strand house cable.  It must have been what he had in his van that day. We discovered this almost immediately after handover because some of the mast lights didn’t work and if they did, the switches on the Schreiber control panel were wrong.  The Bloke has been quite handy in the electronics department since a student, and his trouble-shooting with the multi-meter revealed that by the time the electrician had finished wiring the top of the mast, they’d forgotten which colour wire they’d used for the masthead light, deck light and motoring light. In fact they hadn’t even installed the deck light although that panel switch was connected to what turned out to be the masthead light. The mix-up of cabling was resolved easily but the legacy was the ticking bomb of un-tinned wire. Eventually it would corrode. 

Mousing the new wires through the mast was no fun and a few naughty bad words were scooped from the F@&k Box. 

Here at last was our best opportunity to remedy the wiring. Additionally, I really wanted a tri-colour masthead light for our off-shore passaging. I’d bought one a couple of years ago for this very moment. It was taking up space in the bilge, just waiting. Inspired, The Bloke also replaced the deck/motoring light array to a new LED version. To top it off, a new VHF aerial was fitted seeing as ours had been troubled by birds; had lost it’s coating and become rather deformed. Australian Cockatoos are to blame.

Tasks completed between rain showers.

The peeling  powder-coated paint on the radar dome support was also sanded back and replaced with a lick of two-pack. The Bloke had really embraced the rejuvenation option.

We had specified with the rigger that we wanted Selden turnbuckles. Last time he had used Ronstan ones on the outer stays and they didn’t match the rest of the rig. This selection generated some delay as they were to come from Germany. While whispers intensified about the implications of increasing Covid19 restrictions, we began to wonder if this were not a huge mistake. The longer we were stranded on the hardstand the more chance we’d get trapped by a shut-down. Would our Selden parts arrive at all?!  

In the finish we were a bit like a frog in a pot of water. We became accustomed to the threat of a shutdown and just got on with things. Which is not to say that Cookie didn’t receive multiple neurotic phone calls requesting an update; especially when boats were being re-rigged around us and returning to the water!

Eventually we received the happy news that the riggers were returning to prepare the mast.

Creating a new halyard outlet

The Bloke had arranged for a few alterations. New exit points were made for the Code Zero and inner headsail. This would make for a more conventional looking cutter rig as well as prevent chafing between the furled genoa and Code Zero. Sadly we completely forgot about the radar reflector and chafe tubes. Never mind!

We rapidly looked like a yacht again. The boom wasn’t put back on until after we’d returned to the water. The only mast step wiring The Bloke was unsuccessful reconnecting was the 18-wire radar cable, so it was delegated to a professional. Much to our surprise, this big job came in under budget which was a pleasant surprise seeing as we were, by this time, feeling like we were supporting the whole SE Queensland economy!