Up the mast

I cannot remember what we did in the morning. I know it wasn't a whole lot. I guess after achieving so much yesterday today would be quieter. I soldered up the power cables for the Raymarine instruments.

I should have read the instructions! Seatalk carries power and NMEA data, so what I did was totally wrong. Oh well...

In the afternoon Tim ran the cable through for the speed indicator. It was non-trivial.

The main thing for the afternoon was to work out how to mount the wind speed/direction sensor. It needs to be at the top of the main mast.

We then need to run the sensor cable down the inside of the mast, back through the saloon to the control position.

Quite a run and one I was really concerned about, as dropping a tracer cord down the mast and trying to fish for it at the bottom was something I thought would be pretty difficult.

We had talked about using a 'cherry picker' - a crane with a bucket end on it - to do this, but after hauling Costas from the next door boat up his mast, we thought we would try today.

I cope with, but don't over like heights, and I really wanted to see how safe it was so I went up. I was wearing one of our lifejackets which double as a harness, and in the bosun's chair. Each had a separate halyard on in for safety.

We have steps up the mast, so I climbed and was held at the same time. One of the steps felt 'spongy' and I later found that it had broken. We will need to replace that sometime.

When I got to the top of the mast I had a really pleasant surprise. There was a cable from an old wind speed/direction sensor there and a mounting plate with a couple of bolts for the sensor.

Maybe for the first time on this boat the task would be easier rather than more difficult than anticipated.

The old cable could be used as a draw wire for the new cable and we could create a mounting plate for the new sensor that would simply bolt right in place.

So I descended the mast and put the photos onto my computer so that the others could look at them.

What we needed now was to find out the right size nuts to use and the distance between the bolts fot he mounting plate. Tim found a selection of nuts and I took the vernier calipers tied on with me for the second time up the mast.

From the top the sight down is spectacular. King Malu looks really beautiful.

Anyway I read out to Tim the sizes. The bolt measured 6mm but the outside measurement and the inside measurement didn't quite add up. And all of the nuts were too big. Oh well... at least we now know, or think we know, a 6mm nut will work.

I went down again. Tim found a 6mm nut and up I went again! Third time lucky? No, the 6mm nut didn't work at all. The bolts must be imperial rather than metric. Down to the deck again.

Tim finds an imperial equivalent nut and I climb the mast again. This time a perfect fit. Four times climbing the mast is tiring me so I am very glad this is the last climb of the day.