Mast Up, Slight Hitch

We had a ten o'clock appointment yesterday to raise the mast at the neighboring marina.  Our rigger friends had ordered the replacement standing rigging and swageless fittings, but weren't sure if they would arrive in time.  Matt was able to finish work early and head down Monday afternoon to meet with them at the mast to finish our other mast related projects, organize everything to go up, and attach the swageless fittings. He worked until after 8:00 PM and eventually was able to do more or less everything that needed to be done.  There were a few more lines to feed through blocks, old cotter pins to replace, etc.  I had to work until five and wound up staying home with the dogs so that they wouldn't have to be under foot during the mast raising.  Ultimately I missed a lot of lessons from the riggers but I think it was better not to have the dogs to worry about.  The lift well for the marina was very far back in a very narrow approach. If we hadn't had a working engine I'm not sure how this would have gone but we made the approach, and got into the well successfully after having really no practice at close quarters maneuvers yet this season.  The well is completely concrete so there's no margin for error.  They pulled us very far forward with the anchors hanging over the concrete and then made fun of me for being nervous. What can you do.  I get nervous about my boat. 

The crane was attached at the exact center of the mast so the initial lift brought it up horizontally.  One of the men handling the raising had to use his body weight as a counter weight on the mast foot to keep it down.  

Up! Unfortunately we didn't follow instructions well because we didn't straighten the angle of the spreaders appropriately (port one is a bit droopy as you can see).  We didn't notice, tuned the rig up using a borrowed tensioner, and put the sails on.  It took a surprisingly long time to get everything back where we wanted it.

There's that droopy spreader again looking a bit worse with the rig tightened up.  Hopefully it will be OK, we have a plan to fix it, it's just annoying since we need to be under way early on Saturday in the pouring rain and the wind on Sunday is predicted to be quite heavy so we have to try to get it right.  

Meanwhile the poor door into the vee berth won't close at all with the mast under tension.  Looks like the shape of the doorway is the shape of the doorway even after reinforcing the mast base area.  Maybe it's time to consider shaving the door down.  

Anyway, looking good!