A large stick at last!

The last time that we saw Escapade with her mast was on the sea trials in September 2016! Since then, the mast had been removed and stored, along with numerous others, on the racks at Fox’s Boatyard.

Over the two and a half years that we and the yard were working on her, the mast and rigging were way down the list of priorities. Not any more!

Our mast is a Seldon. It is about 20m tall, anodised and has in mast furling. For those who don’t know, this means that the main sail is wound into the mast rather than dropped down to the boom. This obviously hadn’t been used for many years, so Fox’s had to service it.

Also for those of you who don’t know, the mast is not just there to hold up the sails. There are many other instruments, aerials, antenna on it too and all of these require many metres of electrical cable. This was a job for Martin! Once the mast was down ready for him to work on it, Martin (aided by his friend, Steve) was busy pulling cables from top to bottom… all 20m of the mast length. There were cables for lights, radar, wind speed and direction transducers, VHF aerial, TV aerial, camera and a SeeMe (an active radar transponder)…no I don’t know what half of them do either!!

Once Martin’s jobs were done, the rigging team at Fox’s Boatyard started theirs. All new rigging (standing and running) had to be made as ours was original and 17 years old. It still looked in good condition, but it was a ‘must do’ on the survey and therefore for the insurance. Also, no one wants their rigging to break half way across the ocean!

Many people worked together on mast day. Fox’s ordered the very large crane and driver. The rigging team co-ordinated everything. They ensured the mast was attached to the crane  securely. Next they worked together to raise and then lower it into place. It is a keel stepped mast, so it goes right down into the boat, through the saloon and into the floor.  Once in place, four riggers worked to stop it falling down! This meant attaching the front furler and the new standing rigging.

Eventually, all was complete and Escapade could be moved back to her berth. Standing ashore, watching her reverse away from the haul out area, I could clearly see how tall the mast was. All of the equipment on the top looked minute and a long way from the safety of the deck. A worrying thought for me as  apparently my boat duties now include a new job – going up the mast when there are problems! I think that I may need some practise…maybe a couple of metres first. I am certainly not looking forward to scaling it to the top in open water; rumour has it that the mast moves significantly from side to side once at the top. I feel sick just thinking about it!