Up the mast.

I just today completed one of the most daunting projects ever on my boat. I replaced all the standing rigging, which is the thick steel cables that hold the mast up. This consists of a forestay, a backstay, and 3 shrouds on each side. Most experts suggest it be changed out about every 10 or 15 years, before it fails catastrophically and your mast falls down, tearing a big hole in your boat. Mine was maybe not original to the boat, but certainly very old, of unknown vintage, maybe not as badly corroded and rusty as many I have seen, but still it was past its time and needed to be done for my peace of mind.

When I bought the boat I knew it needed to be done and it has taken me this long to research, plan and then finally gitter done. I have been looking at all the various options for doing it, from just hiring a rigger to do it all, to buying all the pieces and parts from discount distributors and then assembling it all myself. I had to decide on whether to use some of the traditional methods that boat builders have used for hundreds of years to do it themselves, like galvanized cable and hand spliced loops, or newer stainless steel wire and hand swaged joints, or some of the new mechanical hand made connections like Norseman or Sta-loc, or the common method of having a rigging shop with a 50 ton press swage the fittings on. I had the problem that if I went the “do it all myself” route, the boat may well be out of use for several weeks, and I would have no choice but to stay in the marina the whole time, which was not a good option.

I finally decided that I could use my climbing gear and experience to do the up-the-mast work myself rather that hire that part done, and I hired a rigging shop with the 50 ton press to duplicate the old pieces with new gear. I chose a small shop up in Newport, Furling and Rigging. They came well recommended from several people I consulted and were a joy to work with. Tom and Eric were very patient helping me figure it all out, and explained many ways to help make it easier and safer. I took a few shrouds off at a time, replacing each one temporarily with ropes to keep the mast up, then drive the old parts to the rigging shop about 45 minutes away, then go pick it up a day later, then up the mast again to install each one. My mast climbing system worked pretty well. {for you climbing folks: I used my nice new halyards to pull up my climbing ropes to climb on, configured a Klemheist knot to slide up for my foot loot, and a Gri-gri on my harness to sit on, which made it really easy to descend when it was beer-30. As a backup I had another climbing rope through an ATC on my harness, which I tied off to a clove hitch on a locking biner every few feet. It worked really slick, except that my mountaineering harness was really not made for hanging in for hours at a time so it became pretty uncomfortable, what with my legs going numb and all…..} I was very careful to double up on every safety piece, and to check and double check every movement to make sure I was safe. Going up the mast is pretty wild because 32 feet up, unlike solid rock, every little movement of the boat is magnified many times and a little ripple on the water feels like an earthquake up at the masthead. I got used to it pretty quick and actually quite enjoyed it, but I know if I ever had to go up in a storm out at sea it would be very very scary. I didn’t count but I think I must have made about 10 separate trips up the mast during the project. One for the biggest problems was to get the old stuff unconnected so I could take it down. 35 years of corrosion required a lot of Liquid Wrench and hammer tapping to get it all unstuck. I was very proud that in all that top work, even with liquidy wrenchy slippery hands, I did not drop a single tool or single tiny little cotter pin or clevis pin. It was a zen thing. Mind over matter. I knew that it I dropped anything, it would shatter that new plexi-glass hatch that I worked so hard last year to build that was directly below me the whole time. Yes I could have covered it with a pillow, but that would have messed with the zen and I am sure the mast would have then fallen down with me coming along for the ride…..

The project consumed every waking hour for 4 days, but it is all done and looks so good I just wag my tail when I look at it, and I am sure the boat is sailing better now because the rigging is shiny and new.