Sea Gypy's Unmasting

Thursday the mast came out of Sea Gypsy.
 
The Olympic Crane truck showed up at 1000 hours, and by 1030 the mast was horizontal on sawhorses beside the boat. This, after some weeks of procrastination on my part. Not weeks, months, starting last fall after I noticed some cracked swage fittings. 

There were questions. Did I want to take on all the work, did I want to spend all that money? Was I ever going to sail again after all that? And here I am, there the mast is,  after never quite answering those questions, but rather giving in to a rather mysterious force urging me to just do it, whatever. 

In an ideal situation the lifting sling on the crane can be placed on the mast under the spreaders with all hands on the deck, but Sea Gypsy’s mast is not ideal. Steps attached to the side of the mast, and the radar dome, interfere with placing the sling where you want it. That means someone must climb the mast as far as the spreaders to place the sling. I don’t like heights, so II arranged for a professional rigger, Odin of Port Townsend Rigging to do this. He prerigged his gear early, then came over when the crane arrived. He was up and down the mast so fast I didn’t even see him up there, as I was tending to something on the deck. Odin’s speed and agility and strength rather stunned me. It was like whoa - but then, that’s why I hired him.

The elapsed half hour of crane time, ( $225. Hour minimum) and fifteen minutes of Odin’s time, ($138, hour minimum) came at the end of several days of my time getting the mast ready to “pull.” 

Inside the mast wires connecting radar, VHF antenna, television antenna, and the anchor light, steaming light, spreader lights, and the wind instruments to respective destinations on Sea Gypsy. It took the better part of two days to disconnect the mast wiring and pull it all back through six lockers and compartments and chases and tie it up tidy. Whoever slopped paint inside the lockers thought the wiring would also look good white,  so the eight or nine bundled wires that eventually climb to the mast lights were bonded with paint and had to be pried apart before being pulled through bulkheads. I’ve said several times I’d like to kill the person who wired Sea Gypsy, but actually, from evidence observed, justice would involve at least a double homicide. 

A keel stepped mast is usually a stronger and more secure assembly than a deck stepped mast.  The keel being the most substantial structure of a boat, and also a keel stepped mast won’t simply fall over when unstayed. One disadvantage is the keel stepped mast requires an opening in the deck, and any such openings must be made waterproof, in this case the installation included a collar fastened to the deck, and flexible stretchy tape material tightly wrapped around the mast overlapping the collar to make a “boot.” Inevitably on a boat, things that start out waterproof over time are not, especially things on deck. Sea Gypsy’s deck is a sandwich of fibreglass, balsawood core, and inner fibreglass. In my time on Sea Gypsy I’ve only seen a few drops of water trickle down the mast below deck, but in removing the wood trim around the mast from below the history of long time water intrusion is obvious. Nothing’s wet, but the balsa wood around the mast hole is total toast for several inches. A good installation would have isolated the exposed balsa with an epoxy barrier, but they didn’t do that. 

In addition, the plywood spacers and nailers for fastening the finish material to the underside of the deck had literally turned to dust, the end product of dry rot. The ceiling liner, the only non wood finish in Sea Gypsy’s interior, was moldy and disintegrating. As I vacuumed out the dry rot dust, a kind of depressing tidal wave of resignation flooded over me as I came to the realization that the mast work had now expanded to include a new ceiling in the cabin. I only removed the one bay of fabric, but I won’t put back fabric, I’ll put back painted wood. And if one bay of the ceiling is wood, well . . . what of the others? Frankly, that’s ok. I’ve never liked the vinyl overhead. When the previous owner was showing me the boat he said offhandedly some owners of the Ericson 36C had removed the factory vinyl andinstalled a painted wood ceiling. Hint, hint. Sounded nice. I could see it,  and in my mind it was as good as done. 

So the mast is out. The work required to get it out saw me crawling, kneeling, bending, using my hands like a vice, arms and legs as levers, jacks, hoists and come-alongs. Some body parts are the worse for wear. The scope of work ahead is daunting. The paint has to be sanded off, new lights installed, new wires run, new 1 x 19 wire stays attached, new halyards run through new blocks and sheaves, the mast step cleaned up and painted, the deck reinforced and mast hole collar cleaned up and painted. After all that, and don’t ask when, the crane will come back and pick it up and lower it into the boat. I’m removing all the mast steps, and the radar, so the mast will be clean so I won’t need an acrobat to climb and remove the sling. It will simply slide down under its own weight. And that’s in part what this whole thing is about. Simplifying. If I can make it simple enough, maybe we’ll go sailing again. 






Postscript, if you have got this far: 

The mast is a hollow aluminum extrusion about 6" x 10". Its keel stepped on an iron I beam in the bilge. Attached to the mast are nine 1 x 19 wire stays, or shrouds, or wires, that connect to the hull by means of “irons” bolted on at the stem and stern, and to chainplates amidships. On Sea Gypsy the chainplates are ½”  thick aluminum that extend 4’ below the deck and are fibreglassed to the side of the hull. The forestay and backstay attach to the top of the mast, as do the two uppers, or cap shrouds, and they attach to the tops of the chainplates protruding thru the deck. The remaining four stays are lowers, attached to the mast by a stainless bolt under the spreaders, which are arms about 4’ long extending horizontally from the mast and give the upper stays a better angle to support the top. It’s all about triangulation. The rig and the hull and deck become a rigid structure designed to transfer the energy of moving air into forward motion of the hull. It’s serious stuff.  Losing the “stick” at sea might kill someone. A broken mast in the water still connected by the shrouds can ram a hole into the side of a boat and sink it.