Electric Bos'n's Chair MKII
01 June 2010 | at the dock
Captn Andy/hothothot

We had taken a trip to Hawaii for Grampa's 95th birthday and that wiped out two weekends of boat work. That is my excuse for not blogging in the last month or so.
Memorial Day weekend was coming up and I had it in my mind to paint the mast. It had been about 8 years since it was painted last and it needed it. The job would consist of going up the mast on the electric bos'n's chair with a sander and sand the mast on the way down, then go up again with LP paint and lay on a coat of paint, then do it again. Done. Pretty simple, eh?
I took Friday off and organized the electric bos'n's chair and went up the mast with a pad sander on the end of a long extension cord. It was a good bit of work and the battery gave out on the bos'n's chair when I tried to go up with the paint. It only lasted as far up as the spreaders and I had to paint from there down to the boom. That was the end of the day for Friday.
Saturday I watched as other skippers went out to sail on the weekend. I went up again but the battery hadn't recharged completely and I could only go up halfway to the spreaders. I came down and tried another battery, but the result was similar. I was disgusted and used the rapidly curing paint to cover the lower part of the mast and a couple of hatch covers.
Sunday found that the battery charger had bad continuity and wasn't charging the batteries. The solar panel charger had been working properly, though, and with that battery I could go up, but only to the steaming light, about 3/4 the way up to the top. I painted my way down and covered the starboard and front sides of the mast down to the spreaders and painted the tops of the spreaders before running out of paint. This day wwas the beginning of a heat wave and it became difficult to do much work, plus I had some house chores to do. I was pretty disgusted with the progress so far.
Monday was another hot day and I planned to do a quick 2 hour sprint up the mast and paint what I could, then go up in the evening when it had cooled down a bit. It was scorching on deck and I worked on some modifications to the bos'n's chair. A second battery was added to make sure the chair would make it to the top. Also the balance was off, left to right, so that the shaft knob on the winch was grinding into my hip, leaving a painful bruise. The yoke on the other side was moved outboard. Also the winch line was reversed so that it fed from center of the chair instead of near the front edge. Everything was set up for a run up the mast, but the heat had beaten me at least for a time and I retreated to the shady path that ran down to the dock. I slugged down more water and cooled my heels.
Another batch of paint was mixed and off I went up the mast. It actually takes a bit of time as the winch slowly grinds away. It was cooler up there. I had to stop as power boats ran by, breaking the no wake rules. Then up again, eventually reaching the top. The heat and wasted time made the paint congeal and the painting couldn't continue after I reached the steaming light, this time on my way down. There was still the port side of the mast from the steaming light down to the spreaders and also the end of the port spreader still left unpainted.
Thirsty and tired, and meeting the hot deck, like a roasting pan, I wanted to get to the cool path on the shore, but I felt dizzy and sat in the shade of the boom, very little shade. It was so hot. There was a bottle of water which helped and then I made it over to the end of the dock and tried to climb the path up to the car. I didn't make it and ended up sitting on a railroad tie at the edge of the path. Somehow I made it to the car and drank another bottle of water that was there. It was warm. The air conditioner helped revive me. I drove to the cottage and went inside and collapsed on the sofa. There was no strength or energy to do anything the rest of the day. On the scale I had lost 4 lbs. that afternoon.
Later that evening the scene of the climb was cleaned up and hatches secured. The next day was torrential thunderstorms and some relief from the heat.