A sailboat neighbor, G, offered to head up the mast for us today. We don’t have a bosun’s chair (the thing the person going up sits in as they go up). We have a busted anchor light and a non-working anemometer. Mark grabbed the offer from G to as he said in salty terms, “be the monkey on the pole.”
going up
There is not magic elevator button. Mark used the winch to raise up G by hand, by shoulder, by exhausting in the sun turn by turn. Mark is feeling it later!
He says there is no way I’d be able to do it. I agree. Especially since Mark out weights G.
We have electric winches that should allow me to raise Mark, when the time comes. However, the line (rope) that G wanted to use was not long enough. Which brings me to…
lessons learned
When we get the bosun’s chair, we need to make sure that the line is long enough.
The next lesson is around the anemometer. We’re a Ray Marine sailboat. The one up there didn’t spin. Therefore, we didn’t have a wind reading. Did you figure out yet that the anemometer is the spiny thing on the top of the mast that is the wind instrument? ?
Mark had bought a new one at around $300. When G replaced it and brought down the busted one, he handed it to Mark. A fishing line fell off it and in hand, it started spinning. D’oh! It seems a bird sat on the old one and somehow a fishing line had blocked the anemometer. Now we have a spare!
Lesson: maybe check for repairing before you buy.
