June 12 - Bayfield continued

2:04 p.m. – Mast Assembly

This is a job where you don't want any leftover pieces. The former owner felt compelled to disassemble the entire mast system when he sold it, but fortunately he labelled almost every line, stay and shroud which made the job a bit easier, not shorter, but easier. For all appearances the mast could be raised from either the stern or the bow. An executive decision was made to go from the stern so after attaching the massive amounts of shrouds, stays, halyards etc the easiest way to turn it around was to take it for a walk.

While Don was helping to keep everything from getting tangled Les was playing with the ladder.

Apparently you cannot raise a Bayfield mast from either end, the front end is preferred so pesky nuts and bolts don't interfere. I like to call this “The meeting of the minds.”





3:03 p.m.  

So how many people does it take to raise a Bayfield mast? Apparently 9 and a big thanks to all. And what, you say, was I doing? Making sure none of the stays or shrouds kinked or got caught on the way up and when they found out the 2 shrouds on the starboard side couldn't be connected due to the bulbous shape of part of the turnbuckle I took off one of the port ones (rectangular, not bulbous) and swapped it out solving the problem – ta da!

And that night the tomfoolery began.........