Sailboat Ups and Downs
15 March 2014 | Simpson lagoon, SXM
Lynn
There are generally pros and cons to everything. We come to “SXM” to get the dinghy warranty stuff dealt with, and then we have problems with our rigging. Okay, a lower shroud breaking is not a “problem”, it is something that must be dealt with. At least this is a place to “get things done”.
It took about a week to get the riggers to come take a look at our mast and standing rigging. It was decided that our tangs were the culprits of the somewhat premature stay malfunction, and the mast would have to come down. It then took almost two weeks for them to fit us in to pull the mast (the Heineken Regatta is NOT a good time to get much accomplished as a cruising boat). Fortunately, we were ready for when they were ready to do the yank.
We arrived at the yard for 8:00am on Monday morning, as per the instructions on the email. When we arrived, the guys in the yard said the crane wasn’t showing up until the early afternoon. We prepped anyway, and the crane showed up at about 8:45. It was nice to know that the email had the right information for us. By 10:30am, we were back out in the anchorage on the lagoon, anchored, with a blue bucket where our mast usually sits.
It is actually quite amusing to see where habits get ingrained. I am used to using the jib sheets for support when on the foredeck, especially when doing anchor stuff, and there was nothing up there at all, not even the forestay. We normally wedge our towels into the main sheet on the port side when swimming, but we can’t do that now, either. On the other hand, without the stays, mast and boom, there is ever so much more room to walk easily on deck, just watch out for the protruding chainplates (darn they can hurt).
We spent about 4 hours working on the mast while it is in the yard. We changed the foredeck/steaming light, did a little work on the masthead treats, and we have done the ground work for lazyjacks. We have been meaning to install these “sail tamers” for a while, and decided that this was the perfect opportunity to do it. What would have taken a couple of trips up the mast, much concern for safety and a lot more concern about dropping tools 20-50’ below onto the fiberglass deck turned into a relatively easy 3 hours of work, with the chance to only drop stuff about 4’ onto the parched grass, plus we could both work simultaneously. We also removed some hardware that we have decided is superfluous to our needs, cleaning up the masthead a little more and removing a line or two that we really don’t need, and one thing that has been irritating us for a couple of years now but was too hard to get at. The only “hazard” to doing this on land was shooing small iguanas out of the tool bags.
The new tangs are made up and installed; six highly polished chunks of stainless steel professionally crafted for our mast. The new stay will be made up with extra cable that we provided (our rig is imperial, they use metric stuff), and Ken did the legwork to the Budget Marine to get the new fastenings that are required for the job (better than paying them by the hour to do that). We also removed our 30-odd year old bobstay which they are also going to replace, purely on spec. Thankfully, the consensus is that the rest of the standing rigging is fine “as is”, so we think we have everything covered now. Not that we are going to get out of this cheaply, but we will rest easy knowing that our mast will now be solid for a while longer. There was a rumour that our mast might be ready to put back up the next day. We didn’t think it likely.
The next morning, very shortly after 8:00am, and just as I was returning from my run, the boat from the rigging company pooped by to let us know that our mast was, indeed, ready, and the crane was there to put the mast back up. The bobstay work would be completed at the dock. Whoa. I quickly cleaned up, got the travel mugs out for the coffees, and with a banana to sustain us, we hauled anchor and hauled butt to the dock.
When we were at Queen City Yacht Club, most of us put our own masts up and took them down. There is something nice about having professionals doing it all, but it still felt a little strange to us to have someone else do it all. However, the rigging is now professionally tuned, we have a new bobstay, and we had them do the waterproofing where the mast goes through the deck (this has been a leaky hassle from day one that I have never been able to cure). The mast water prevention is guaranteed to work, according to Arthur the rigger.
We declined the offer to put our boom up and do the little things like get the halyards attached to the mast sorted. I don’t find it an onerous task, and frankly, I am not paying someone $70/hr to do drudge work like that. Plus, I have a small amount of pride. We ARE capable of doing some things for ourselves! We considered ourselves lucky, as a boat next to us with a more elaborate rigging system was taking far more time to get done; the owner was also letting the riggers do all of the little stuff and stayed out of it completely. He was surprised when we left before his stuff was done, and his mast was put in before ours was. Sometimes it is nice to have an old boat with a battering ram for a mast. It may weigh three times what the other boat’s does, but it is easier to rig, and it is not like we personally have to carry it anywhere.
We were on the dock by about 8:45, and we left the dock by about 12:30. The last hour was for waiting to pay (not too painful) and getting the little things sorted out on deck. The guys were very nice, and we made a point of picking up a 12 pack of Presidente beer to deposit in the employee’s drink fridge. Sure, they are paid, and probably well, but we have found that it never hurts to be nice to the people that do the work.
Now we just have to finish off the lazyjacks and get the boat back into sailing shape. This has been a good opportunity to get a few things crossed off the ongoing “to-do” list. The sails are up, and we look like a sailboat again. And the wakes aren’t rocking us so badly with the mast back up.