… and the mast is off!

A couple of days with a dehumidifier and proper limber holes in the mast step did the trick.

Some pictures:

Bye bye mast.

Joel actually only calls boats with their sails up for sailing boats. When the sails are down he calls them “mast boats”. When boats don’t have any masts he gets confused.

Offending mast step.

Stupid me

I would like to think I know a thing or two about boats. The problem is, as the years go by, people who know stuff tend to become a bit rigid in their beliefs. But not me, you see. I don’t only know a lot about boats. I have also found a way to keep modest and continue to learn. I simply mess up big time, once in a while.

Yesterday we were going to take off the mast. In the plans it clearly states that the mast foot should have limber holes. But I didn’t put them there. I figured that could wait, since we were only going to make a few sail trials and not sail the big seas this year. We wouldn’t have big waves rolling over the deck. I mean, what could happen?

If you don’t put limber holes in the mast foot the mast swells. And it is difficult to remove a swollen mast. The mast crane was able to lift the boat quite high out of the water, though, pulling the mast top.

Now I have learnt something. Feels great.

Mast partners and partner knees

Warning! Old pictures. This is how the mast is reinforced.

Laminated pine for the mast partner under deck. Also works as an oversized backing plate for deck hardware. I don’t understand why some people use grp-tubes or stainless bolted to deck. This is much simpler for a wooden hull, anyway.
Mast partners

The partner knees are epoxied with large a large radius filet to the hull and deck and taped with a number of layers of glass/epoxy.

Partner knees

Then there is a watertight bulkhead, slightly over an inch thick. According to the plans that one isn’t really needed for the hull strength, but it sure feels fine to have it there.

Also, the mast foot, made of laminated ash, running over numerous floors goes through this bulkhead. So it shouldn’t move.