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| Fantasia at moorage after sunset |
In the morning, we built the new mast raising system. It not only has the gin pole, but a mast stepper in the aft of the boat so that it can be raised without having to do a lot of lifting. Using the boom pulley, it should take tugging on a line to get the mast up in position ready to be put into the mast step.
The mast stepper raises the mast high enough so it rests without touching the cabin sliding door. The roller allows sliding back with little effort. We need to make a few tweaks to move it just a little further aft in the cockpit so that we don't have to lift the shroud spreaders over the mast stepper supports when moving it into position to put the mast pin in place. As soon as we have all the bugs worked out, we will post complete plans with parts list and pictures and everything.
Building all this, with measurements, trips to McLendons for hardware, Home Depot for wood, and adventures with power tools took a good part of the day.
When everything was in place, it just took about a minute to crank the mast upright. We then had to launch on a crowded boat launch. All the power boats were trying to come in from the weekend as we were trying to launch. This was our second successful launch, and we are learning a little each time. This time was mostly smooth. From arriving at the boat launch to motoring away took 1.5 hours with just two people. Better than the five hours last time with four people. We are sure we can get it under an hour with a little more practice.
We then motored to our moorage, about four miles away. We got there just before sunset, which was good because we still don't have working lights (more on that on a future post). We put out a bunch of fenders and tied up. Greg snapped the picture as the last of the light was fading and we walked away from the dock.
