GroupWBench

 If it hasn't been one thing it has certainly been another for the last couple of weeks. In a fit of trying to do the right thing and putting points in the black box, we decided to replace our old halyards. These are the ropes that we use to haul the sails up – and don't get me started railing on sailorspeak and the nonsense about ropes vs. lines vs. sheets etcetera, a rope by any other name would smell as sweet - so to speak. The halyards were the old school type where half of the length was wire. The wire gets old and strands break and stick out and slice your hands up. Modern rope makers can all but eliminate rope stretch and there is no need to have wire in the mix any more.

We got a good deal on having a halyard made with a nice eye-loop with a new shackle in one end and the other end neatly and professionally whipped. (That means tied so it won't unravel – get your mind off the leather & thigh boots.) With the new halyard in hand, I just needed to connect the new halyard to the old one and pull it through. No need to go to the top of the mast. Easy peasy…right?

When we pulled the new halyard up, it stuck for a moment. Then both the old and new halyards came tumbling down. The tape I'd used to stick them together had let go. Okay, we still got this, Ivy and I are experienced rock climbers. Going up a 35 foot mast should be no problem. We broke out the climbing gear. Ivy put on her harness and climbed the mast while I cranked her up on the spare halyard. She spent a few minutes at the top and reported down that the new halyard wouldn't fit. We traded places and she belayed me up the mast and the answer was…the old sheaves (the pulley wheels that the halyard runs through) were sized for wire to run through them and they were very large. So large that there wasn't room for the new halyard line to run between the sheave and the plate a the top of the mast. I'm pretty sure there is some ridiculous and arcane sailorspeak name for that, but again – don't wind me up over using unnecessary and ridiculous terminology just to sound salty.

So, the next step seems simple, just replace the sheaves with ones that fit the space and the new halyard. I found some good ones on sale and ordered them. I also ordered new clevis pins so the new sheaves would fit. The old ones were an oddball size and wouldn't work for the new sheaves.

While I was up the mast that last time I rigged a sling and pulley so we could haul ourselves up on a climbing rope. This meant we wouldn't be hanging on a halyard while trying to replace it, which would be the boating equivalent of sawing off a limb while sitting on it cartoon style. While we were wrapping up for the day, we decided to run a thin line up to replace the climbing rope so we wouldn't be leaving it out in the sun. When we came back we'd switch it back. Yeah, that didn't work out so good. The two lines parted where we had them taped together and came tumbling down, leaving the pulley dangling up there laughing at us. We were left with no halyards, climbing rope, or messenger line going to the top. DOH! I was going to have to aid climb up the mast.

 The plan we had this weekend was to spend the night on the boat and get up early to beat the heat and go up the mast, replace everything and congratulate our selves soundly. It was a pretty sunset. Ivy snapped this shot.

After that, we were thoroughly spanked and sent to our room.

For starters, it is summer in Texas. Spend August in Texas and you'll understand what an ant under a magnifying lens experiences. It gets pretty darned hot here. Which, of course, means we are working on our air conditioner. No cool cabin right now. In spite of that, Ivy and I slept in late on the boat. We came to life around 8:00 or so. By the time we got it all together and I started aid climbing the mast with friction slings to inchworm my way up, it was getting hot. It took me a long time and much effort to get to the top of the mast. So much effort that all I had juice for was to reset the climbing rope through the pulley and come back down. I was dehydrated, hot, and whupped. Here is a picture of me as an inchworm. I bruised my legs up on the wires holding up the mast.

I cranked Ivy up to clean up the extra gear I left up there when I came down. The climbing rope on the pulley worked great. We sucked down lots of water and packed up. Time to go home and work on the window falling out of my car. At least that won't involve a hanging belay.

Ivy took this when she was hanging around up on the mast.

P.S. Woo hoo! Another success. Found a replacement pump for the air conditioner on a closeout sale for $20. That is down from $110. I guess that means I can't complain too much.