WEDNESDAY, JULY 5 – TUESDAY, JULY 9, 2006 - Juneau

This past week has been a flurry of events and activity. I don’t think I can chronicle the days – it’s all pretty much a blur.

Brad and the mast arrived within hours of each other on Wednesday night. John Husby at Alaska Air Freight in Seattle did an outstanding job of assuring that our mast made it here to Juneau. Yellow Freight was also very helpful and could tell us exactly where the mast was and when it would be delivered to Alaska Air.

First off on Thursday, the guys got the bimini removed and managed to get it straightened fairly well. The next order of the day was to get the broken mast down. It was quite the operation, and I have a brand new affection for our Sampson post J. Once that was done, Brad worked at removing all of the electronics, lights and instruments from the old mast.

The parts for the watermaker finally arrived and John had it unassembled and in a thousand pieces in the lazarette and cockpit. I ran around trying to find the parts and fittings that the guys needed and made a run to Costco.

Friday and Saturday, Brad reinstalled all the electronics, lights and instruments on the new mast. He and John took measurements and had the rigger make up the new stays. We replaced the old lifeline stays with 5/16” stainless steel cable swaged with a stainless sleeve and thimble, pressed with a 500 ton press. These guys are really beefy. We also did away with the Norseman fittings and went with 3/8” x 12” turn buckles instead. We replaced all the 1/4” Spectra line on the winches with 5/16” Amsteel line, and replaced all the old blocks with the new, bigger ones that Brad got from Forespar. We got the new mast raised (LOVE my Sampson post!) and secured and discovered that the front stays were too long (the rope most likely stretched when the first measurements were made). The rigger came by just as we were doing this, so he took new measurements and went to make another set of stays for the forward fittings. Brad tested all the lights and electronics and everything was operational – woo hoo! He did end up having to climb the mast twice, though, in order unleash the too long front stays and replace them with the new ones.

In the meantime, John was also working on the watermaker and had discovered that the energy transfer device had worn seals. He had to rebuild the ETD, replace all the seals and o-rings and sand and polish the distribution panels, then reinstall it in the lazarette. We have a compact unit and this thing just is not easily serviceable. We had bought the compact unit because of limited space, but we will not do so again. The modular unit is definitely more user friendly. By the way, this is the second major breakdown we’ve had on this HRO unit in a year and a half. For now, though, we were back in business and making water.

Craig and Jeanette called on Saturday from Sitka and decided they would come over on the afternoon ferry since John and I were hoping to get underway on Monday morning. Brad decided he’d leave on Sunday evening, as we still had some loose ends to tie up. Bob and Cheryl returned from their cruise to Cannery Cove and Tracy Arm.

Sunday, the guys put the bimini back up and reinstalled the canvas cover. We went to test the winches and dinghy system and discovered that the top winch was really grinding and not able to lift the dinghy and boom. The rest of the system seemed fine. John and Brad went in search of a new winch, but $60.00 later (cabs in Juneau are a little pricey) came home empty handed. Brad decided we’d have to try and rebuild the winch. We decided if that didn’t work, we’d just drag the dinghy, and Brad could send us a new winch in Sitka. The guys worked most of the afternoon on the winch. There was a fair amount of corrosion and rust inside the motor and around the brushes. Brad cleaned all that up and reinstalled the winch. Hallelujah! It worked perfectly! We raised and lowered the dinghy several times and all seemed well, so we put the dinghy back in its cradle in preparation for leaving tomorrow. I hosed all the aluminum shavings (from drilling all the holes in the mast) from the flybridge, and we were definitely looking better than we had in a long time.

Brad went over to Kasekuchen and looked at Bob’s windlass, as it was frozen up. Come to find out that these Maxwell windlasses do in fact need greasing (we had been told that they were oil and grease free), so the last thing Brad did before leaving Sunday night was show us how to dismantle and grease the windlass.

Brad and John worked literally nonstop for four straight days, three of those in cold and pouring rain. John and I can’t say enough about Brad. He was awesome and made everything right in record time. I don’t know of any other business owner who would have dropped everything and come up to Juneau to work like a dog in these circumstances. Brad, you’re the best and we are very appreciative of everything you did for us. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

We still have not really made a final determination of what went wrong with the original stay and fitting. We will at some point hopefully have some answers and will post what we know, when we know it. In the meantime, you can see what we have done – everything in the system is beefed up, from cables to fittings to lines. We probably don’t look as “yachty” with the stainless steel cables, but we love our boat and want to be able to use her and continue to cruise without worries about safety of rigging.

So, after ten days, much labor, and many dollars later we are back up and running. Tomorrow we go cruising.