You might be asking what the story is with our mast. After all, that’s we’ve been working on, arduously, every day for most of the last two weeks. Well, I’ll try to explain it a bit.
Masts are supported on four sides by wire rope (fancy name for wire) – at least they are on Walk On. There are many different kinds of rigging but I’m not writing a rigging book here so we’ll stick to our boat. From the top of the mast, going forward and going aft are wires called stays. The one going down to the bow of the boat is the forestay and the one going down to the stern of the boat is the backstay. Easy enough. Right? Then there are lateral wires, running down to the port and starboard sides of the boat, and attached on deck. These are called shrouds. We’re working on the shrouds. Walk On has 6 shrouds, a lower pair, an intermediate pair and a pair that goes to the top of the mast (aka ‘cap shrouds’).
Maybe a few images will help:
Pretty simple, right? Fore for the foreward stay and Back for the aft, or back end of the boat, stay.
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You get the picture, right?
These drawings are from the original (masterpiece) drawings by David de Villiers.
The shrouds themselves are fine. At least they seem to be. The focus of this whole project is really the terminals, where the shrouds are attached to the mast. During our passage from the Galapagos to the Marquesas back in July and August, at about half way through the 3000 mile odyssey, one of these terminals failed. In other words, it broke, and the shroud, wire & terminal and all that, came falling down on deck. Boom. This startled us of course, but the real issue is maintaing structural support for the mast… Lest she FALL DOWN! Talk up about being up the famous creek without a paddle……..
To our good fortune, the one terminal that did break was one of the lower, or shortest shrouds. In this case it was also the one to starboard and therefore the one that was ‘working‘ the least to support the mast in winds coming from port and aft. Soon after it came down, I was up to the first spreaders where the shroud is attached, and we had it back up in a sort of provisional mode. As long as we didn’t push hard with full sail nor run into some serious heavy weather, it would likely be ok. We sail pretty conservatively anyway, so that wasn’t a big deal. It’s been fine by the way, since then – but it’s not ready for a long ocean passage to say… Hawaii.
Once in Tahiti, we got in touch with the firm that made our mast and rigging, Manotaço, of Porto Alegre, Brazil. I sent them pictures of everything and described the whole scenario in detail. Their response was one of complete professionalism, speed and no questions asked customer service. Incredible. The first and only time that one of the firms that worked on Walk On during the building phase had ever treated the customer like that and stood behind their product, 100%.
They might have given me advice about how best to have a replacement piece made in Tahiti that would suffice for the remaining miles of the journey. In fact, that was about the level of my expectations when we first got in touch. They might have even sent me a replacement piece for the one that broke. But they went much much further. The partners that run the mast making shop, Carlos Manotaço and Zé, discussed the situation and decided that the best route would be to replace the terminals with a different system altogether! In their eyes, it was better to switch systems to stronger, more traditional style terminal. So they went even further and asked me about and address where they might send the necessary bits and pieces. That’s right, they purchased some of them, fabricated the rest and sent me a complete kit by DHL – all free of charge to us! This may be standard practice in some places, or for owners of mega yachts, but I am still very pleasantly surprised, no – edified – by this response. We are delighted that we have a Manotaço Mast. There aren’t many suppliers in the country where our boat came from that stand behind their product like that. Hats off to Carlos & Zé, and if you are in Brazil looking for a quality spar for your boat, that will be looked after even years after it’s been vertical on your boat – look them up.
The original terminals were of a ‘ball & socket’ style – a bit like an angled and modified trailer hitch. The ball terminal on the top end of the wire shroud fits into a socket, which is rigged inside the mast and held in place by screws. This kind of terminal is apparently gaining popularity where aluminum masts are used (and that’s the majority of masts these days I’d say). They are more aerodynamic than some other kinds and allow a certain amount of flexing in all directions (and masts do move, pumping and raking, more than you might imagine). In our Galapagos/Marquesas episode, the socket failed at a weld point and the ball and shroud were able to fall free. The socket fell to the base of the mast, inside the mast and inside the boat, and were were able to recover it quite easily.
A few pics to explain:
This is the original ball terminal, to Port, in the socket… this one isn’t broken.
See the difference? This is the one to starboard, where the socket broke (failed) and fell down inside the mast when we were on passage from the Galapagos to the Marquesas. So this is a ball and NO socket. This is BAD for the mast, as the aluminum is soft and if you sail hard, you can kill your mast without the socket in there.
This is what was left of the socket that broke (this piece fell down INSIDE the mast). I’ve kept it as a momento…
So our job the last 15 days or so has been to replace the terminals on all the shrouds (6 of them), and fit the bolt, aluminum compression tube, and stainless steel tangs into the mast. After that, you run the shrouds back up, attach the eyes to the tangs, and then eventually tighten it all up and look for an expert to help you tune the mast. We aren’t quite there yet, but we have not successfully replaced all the terminals and all 6 shrouds are back in place. This has taken a long time and countless trips up the mast for both Danny and me. It’s already a big job even for a professional rigger – but it’s slower and more difficult for a couple of complete amateurs like us. Surprisingly, the most difficult part wasn’t the hours spent hanging in a bosun’s chair like a monkey (with additional safety strap!) – although that can be tricky depending on what’s happening on the water. When there are waves, either from wind, swell, or the wake of a passing powerboat, the boat rocks. Clearly, the top of the mast rocks a whole lot more than the boat does on deck (hold your elbow still, wth your hand up straight in the air and then swing your arm back and forth with the elbow still and you’ll get the picture). So the experience of working up the mast can be exhilarating or downright terrifying. No room for fear of heights here – and it helps if you enjoy thrill rides at theme parks.
But really, the slowest and most difficult part of the entire job has been to change the upper terminals on the wire – from the ball terminals to the eye terminals. It’s a skill and a saga that we’ll nickname ‘Norseman’ for the moment. More on that in the next post….
OH, and a few pics of the new hardware… the pieces that Manotaço send us DHL from Brasil. Chapion of the year for yachting customer service!
So, here’s the new set – and there are three complete sets like this. The pieces at the bottom are the ‘eyes’ which have to be fitted onto the wires (shrouds), after cutting off the old ones with a hacksaw. BTW, it’s 10mm ss wire, 1×19, for those who are taking rigging notes. The ‘angled’ pieces in the middle, stick out from the sides of the mast, and that’s where you attach the eyes, with pins and cotter pins to secure them. The big fat aluminum tube on top goes through the middle of the mast. Inside of it is a monster stainless bolt, that gets screwed on tightly with thread locker.
Details.
More details. And we’ll explain this all later. I won’t post the second half yet because we need to go back up for tuning, and Take some pictures!
Ciao!
S/Y Walk On 