Unstepping the mast

This morning Ian, Tijn and I unstepped the mast. It went pretty well, considering that we had to use a different hoist from last time. The only notable difference was that the tabernacle was no longer tight, so the mast came out of it right away, no tugging necessary.



First order of business was to remove the loose spreader and figure it out. When I did that, the end practically c rumbled in my hands, it was that corroded!

So, I needed a new spreader. After calling some 8 or 9 places (machineshops and metal suppliers), I managed to locate a place (Ventura Metal Broker Inc) that had some of the aluminum tubing I needed (1 1/2'' o.d., 1/16'' thickness, 35 3/4'' length). It was 3pm by that time, so I got in my car and drove to Ventura to pick up the parts.



Constantijn asked a friend who is a machinist to make end fittings for the spreaders, so at 9pm, we went to Rudi's garage and he did an incredible job of machining those fittings. He then compression fitted them onto the spreaders, so that by 11pm we had a superb fix to a problem that we had discovered less than 12 hours before.

I am immensely grateful for the way this turned out!