Reseating the Mast

Please view the first entry in this blog if you are a potential buyer of our boat.  Photos and specifications, along with contact info is in the entry titled: Sale Sail Sale Sail Sale Sail.

2-21-15:  Saturday night around 7:30 pm., on the way back to the dock.  All is well! 

 

When Richard had the mast pulled on 12-18-14, he proceeded to inspect and repaint it.  During the inspection of the rigging, he discovered a break in two wires in the forestay.  He had cable on board to replace the forestay.  And he had contact with the boatbuilding company, Alwoplast in Valdivia, where the new stay could be swaged with a marine eye terminal.  But he needed a new marine eye of the correct size.

The eye, permanently attached to the rigging cable by swaging,  fits into the clevis, which is permanently attached to the hull of the boat.  

We had to wait a while for that part to arrive from the USA.  Bureaucratic & linguistic challenges kept the part on the shelf in Miami for a full week, but on Friday 1-13 the eye was delivered here in Puerto Montt.  Richard bought our bus tickets to Valdivia where we'd get the cable swaged.  

 

Monday, February 16, found us walking from our hotel to Alwoplast's internet address ... which is downtown, and nowhere near the actual shipyard, surprise, surprise.  Thanks to a helpful taxi driver, we found the correct address and rode out past the Kuntsmann Brewery on the road toward Niebla to find Alwoplast just beyond the yacht club out there on the rio.  (The correct address is Camino a Niebla km 8.5.)  

(Cruising World article about Alwoplast   This shipyard has a great story of its own!)

Don Ronald undertook the swaging project, and by noon we waited on the Niebla Road for the bus back to Valdivia.  

Richard wears the coiled cable.

Fortunately, due to crowded bus schedules, we had time for a very good seafood meal at La Perla de la Mar on the Costanera in Valdivia. Tender merluza, flavorful congrio, with fine service too. And THEN we went back to Puerto Montt.  

 

At the marina, the next available opportunity to have the mast lifted back into the boat was Friday ... but that changed at about 3 pm on Friday, due to other boats claiming priority.  Saturday ... at 5:00 pm when the tide should be about right.  They want to put a mast in when the tide is falling ... because the lift, the straddle crane, has to hold the mast up so high in order to drop it into the hull of the boat.  We were ready at 5: 



The boat was in the slip.



The mast on its blocks ...

.. with its rigging all carefully strapped in place. 

   Tiempo Chileno is different.  Around 6:30, Miguel showed up to start the straddle crane.  Soon Jose and Guillermo joined in to help.  Richard helped carry the butt end of the mast out away from the building, so the crane could straddle it.  Then he hooked the crane's cable to the rope he'd prepared at the lower spreader.

Richard removes straps so the rigging can fall free, while Miguel holds the lift control.

Jose jumped down onto the boat.

Richard got down there, too.

 

Guillermo's over there on the starboard side guiding the top of the mast. 



Once the mast was seated, Richard had to climb the ratlines to free the crane's hook.

 

Then he could begin to re-attach stays to hull.

 

He had to climb the ratlines one more time to move the forestay to the forward side of the mast. 

 

Today, Tuesday, El Capitan has replaced the main boom and run the mainsail up and down.  He hanked on the genoa and all works well there.  Maybe it's time for a run out the channel to test the tuning of the rig? 

 

Que le vaya bien, Abrazo!