The long sad story of our mast:
About a year ago we bought new radar. At the end of summer after all the sailing, guests and friends had gone, we decided it was time to install it. The outer bits came off the mast relatively easily. The cable though was a different story. Despite all of our pulling, tugging and yanking we couldn't get the cable down and out the bottom of the mast despite both of us hanging off the cable. So Alan decided to just pull the stick. Once it was on the ground we thought it would be easy to pull out the old cable, run the new, add some new lights to the top and some to the spreaders. We figured it would be a week at the most.

So Alan and our friend Guy began taking things off the mast in preparation for the pull. Eventually they got to a plate that was pop riveted to the outside of the mast below the boom vang. Both men thought the plate was there as reinforcement for the vang. But after a bit of poking and prodding Guy found that the plate was there covering a large hole in the mast, not as a bracing over the solid mast.

When they pulled the plate off the mast they found the large hole in the mast shown here. In addition, there were hairline fractures running from the upper edge of the hole to the attachment for the X-bracing for our spreaders. Three surveyors had been through the boat and none of them found this hole. And certainly the previous owner didn't tell us that there was a gaping hole in his mast.

We wrestled with what to do for a couple weeks and finally decided to just get a new mast. This wasn't a happy choice but we both had visions of the entire rig coming down somewhere miles out in the Pacific in the middle of a dark, and stormy night. So we bit the bullet and ordered the mast last August.

It arrived at the end of January. It took five freaking months to get a mast from Florida to California that was already built and lying in Z-Spar's (US Spar's) yard at the time we ordered it. Finally it was only a full out hissie fit and threats of not paying for it at all that got the mast finally onto a truck. I will never do business with these folks again.

So now the fun begins. New radar, new masthead lights, new anemometer, old antenna, and new bird spikes and lights on the spreader, and new lazy jacks for the sail bag.