“There’s good news and bad news.” When someone says that, is it ever really good? 😂
On our way south down the east coast of Florida, we stop in Stuart to have a professional rigger from Mack Sails take a look over our standing rigging. We had a bunch of questions:
1) After being hit by lightning the previous season, we wanted to know, is everything in satisfactory condition?
2) Our mast has been pumping ever since we bought the boat — is there something we can do to fix it?
3) The rig (as far as we know) is original to the boat. Yet it’s been stored indoors and sailed most of its life in fresh water. Do we need to worry about its age?
4) Kirk’s been tuning it himself. Is he on the right track, or way off?
Turns out we have some work to do on the boat. Join us for a huge project, go behind the scenes at the Mack Sails rigging shop, and find out what is the most expensive inch we’ve ever moved.
Hope you enjoy!
Lauren & Kirk
FILMED: March 2020
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Really enjoy your videos, keep up the good work!
That being said, I feel I must point something out….your rigger seems imminently qualified and clearly does quality work…but hiring that crane just to move the mast step/ mast base was unnecessary! A good old fashioned come-along or some of the boat’s own block and tackle led out the companion way would have done the job with no crane…
If this comes again….just ease all the standing rigging a bit, and PULL the mast base aft. You could even temporarily over-tension the head stay a bit to help shift the mast base aft…. conversely, if you later find that the mast step is too far aft, ease everything except the backstay and a few whacks with a rubber mallet will likely suffice in moving the mast forward. When I saw the crane arrive in the video, I thought you were un-stepping the mast for the rigging work…and was impressed your rigger did the job vertical!
I wish you two (three now!) continued success in your journeys
Hey Tom, I agree there were definitely some other ways this could have been done. It’s possible that as a professional rigger, Richard is use to working with a crane, and so as the saying goes, when you’re a hammer everything looks like a nail. But having the crane there gave us the opportunity to see that mast moved into position on its own once the weight was taken off it. This was good confirmation of our thesis. In hindsight you’re right we could have tried to move it with a some tension down below and if that didn’t work, THEN hire the crane, but in the end we got what we needed done, and once we hired him to make it right, we trusted his process and it wasn’t our place to mettle with the details too much. That said you make a good point about tweaking things in the future if need be.
I know this was some time ago but, I am currently hauled out in Port Townsend Wa. , with #366 Thin Ice. After sailing from Cali-Hawaii and back. That mast pumping caused my electrical conduit to come loose and the banging was horrific. Also creaking in the partners. I have fixed the conduit with new rivets and plan to install Spar-tite for the creaking. But , did your move in eps. 90 actually control the mast pumping?
Don W
Hi Don, it definitely improved it. Our mast had way too muck rake and not enough prebend. The small movement at the base really improved both of those, which improved the handling of the boat, and minimized the pumping.
For us the pumping only occured at certain wind angles and really only while fixed to the dock or on the hard. It’s possible it happened while under sail as well, but we couldn’t hear it over the noise of sailing the boat, and I couldn’t visually see any movement when going forward and sighting up the mast. If you were getting enough pumping to pull the conduit off the mast I’d think it’s time to do an overall rig tune as well. That sounds like a lot of pumping. If we were to do it all over again I think spar-tite is the way to go. Sounds like you’re on a good path.