It has finally happened. Our mast has been repaired, repainted and reinstalled!! Also, while the mast was out we elected to go ahead with all new standing rigging. What we had was assumed to be 10-15 years old and could possibly fail so it was a necessary upgrade.

We arrived in Annapolis on a Monday and the mast was pulled on the next day. Chesapeake Rigging Annapolis Spars is who we chose to do the needed work. They got started right away removing the old stays and shrouds and prepping the mast for repair. The engineer who designed our mast 27 years ago is the same person who designed and performed the repair. We are extremely pleased with his work.

Next came the painting crew...Maxwell and I! Check out our SmugMug gallery Painting the Mast. We removed all of the hardware, sanded the old paint off, and began the 5 step process. First is Zinc Chromate, next two coats of primer and then two coats of paint. Each layer took about 2 1/2 hours each to coat the 56 1/2 foot spar. It sounds like it was no sweat but somehow this took us days and days to accomplish.

Once we were finished painting we began reinstalling the hardware and rewiring the instruments and lights. Two weeks from the date it was pulled, the mast was reinstalled. Happy Day! Check out the gallery Re-Stepping the Mast.

We had a long trip back home to VA testing our new spar. Anastasia endured 25-30 knot winds and 5 foot seas flawlessly in our treck south on the Chesapeake Bay. It was her crew who was shivering in the rain and wind.

The departure date is coming into clear sight as we are wrapping up the last few jobs on our list. Of course there will always be things to work on...it is a boat for Pete's sake! But there are just a few more tasks we want to have finished prior to push off.

Time to get excited!!!!