mast now hinged

Frenchkissv
Sun 27 Mar 2011 15:33
After waiting 3 months, the mast has finally been hinged and was re stepped on 24/3/11. This involved steaming down the river to Fremantle Sailing Club where the mast was waiting. After rerunning the halyards the crane finally arrived and the mast was quickly slotted into place and the standing rigging tensioned enough to support the mast. Plates were then fitted to each side of the deck to attached spinnaker poles which triangulated forward to a ring which also held a block and tackle and the forestay and this allowed the hinged mast to be tilted backwards almost to the horrizontal so we could steam under the 3 bridges in Fremantle. Finally we returned to the pen at RFBYC by 5PM. Philippe returned the next day to tension up the rig and we entered our first race yesterday. Having the yacht just sitting in the river for 3 months means there is quite a build up on the bottom, and we decided not to fly a spinnaker with the new crew so we came a distant last on handicap. We will no doubt improve once the hull has been cleaned and we gain enough confidence to get the kite up and down............stay tuned