Mastless in Mooloolaba

Boat maintenance continues at Lawrie's Boat Services in Mooloolaba.  On Thursday morning we warped the boat into the slip and the travel-lift crane was used to lift the mast out of the boat.  We had done almost all the preparatory work so it was a quick job.  Before we knew it the mast was heading off into the yard and the boat was looking "strange".

Mast "in slings"

Mastless in Mooloolaba

The rest of Thursday was spent inspecting, planning work on and cleaning the mast.  We decided to sand back all four spreaders so they all look similar after the work, and started work on that.  We decided to replace the masthead VHF antenna since it is a very short stubby type, to replace all light globes with LED versions, and to rewire the mast entirely.  We also decided to remove the wind sensor since it has never functioned well.  It reports random direction and about half the real wind strength.  We'll try fitting it to the pushpit where we can play with it more easily.

Old masthead fittings

On Friday we spent most of the day sanding the spreaders back to bare aluminium, making templates of the new plates required, and lining up for the local stainless steel fabricators to do the required work on Monday.  Below is a picture showing the s/s pins which have been digging into the aluminium mast.

The offending pins "eating" the mast

On Friday morning previous owner Rex visited us and gave us the plaque from (then) Zen's participation in the 2007 Brisbane to Gladstone Race.  Thanks Rex!  It was fun pointing out the work we've done on the boat over the last year and discussing the boat's eventful history.

On Friday the replacement high pressure oil line for the engine arrived, plus the new wetbox/waterlock/muffler and exhaust hose.  We walked along to the local Whitworths shop (chandlers) and spent way to much money on boat stuff - principally LED globes, new LED deck light and hose for the new water bladders.

Today we continued sanding back the spreaders (nearly done at last!), installed new LED globes in the masthead lights and rewired the mast.  The new tricolour LED globe required some "remodelling" of the existing  mounts to accommodate the new globe.  It fits with about 1mm clearance - phew!  The new light will hugely reduce our power consumption at night since it uses 3.5W and the old used 25W.  The wiring was completed without a hitch, including fitting mousing lines to pull through future cables if necessary.

This afternoon we took the bus into Mooloolaba and collected our mail from the yacht club marina, then had a pleasant sundowner with Gary and Nat, owners of a very nice new Hanse 44 "Mocean".  Their boat is being commissioned near Zen Again at Lawrie's.  After that we enjoyed a huge Waygu rump steak for dinner aboard Zen Again.

Hope all's well where you are!