After a good home cooked dinner (second major spousal gift of the day), it was a couple hours in the garage dressing out the boom for duty tomorrow. The new outboard end sheave box, and the mast-connect toggle system came out great. Reefing the three clews will be much better this time around.

Stepping it back to the morning, Raf the trucker showed up early! Minor snafu about “no honey, when he says cash that doesn’t mean you can write a check”, and who knew you can get 2grand in Benjamins from the ATM now? The mast ended up sharing with three crew coach boats, a jet ski, a new MotoGuzzi and a small Harley. This guy takes great care of the products and his clients. What a huge relief that was.

The Bay Marine project manager forklifted us off that trailer on to mast carts and we were sent to fetch Ravenswing while they worked another rig and the dock cleared. It was about 11:30 when we actually started unpacking, cleaning and dressing out the bare mast. Jeanne brought the parts I had left on the kitchen floor, then continued on to Alameda where the Harken mast head sheaves were being erroneously delivered to the Bay Marine (Svendsens) headquarters instead of their Richmond boat yard. Thank goodness they were found same-day, and we got those three halyards in. Jim, Carlos and I finished at 4:30. And that includes numerous employees coming over to talk about what a ‘bad ass mast this is’.

For Keith and RickW, here’s the red loctite on the huge Wichard standing rigging shackle. Then lashing with 1/8″ amsteel dyneema. Look how nice the hound turned out; after I left CompEng the owner Ted made a perfect press-fit steel bushing to exact fit the shackle pin. Another element of how everything on this mast is top shelf.

Now a product plug for SailTimer. This 100% solar powered and Bluetooth wireless anemometer (wind station) creates an always-on NMEA1803 signal every second, including its own internal gps. This means the unit doesn’t care at all about mast rotation! The workmanship is fantastic – the cups look very strong, the balance is extraordinary and sensitive. I hope it works as well as it looks on the ground. For $350 it does not come with a display, but you use your phone/tablet/e-reader/chart plotter with the app of your choice. Skipping that whole rotating mast compensation issue is totally worth it.

Ok- mast and boom are ready for the 8am crane appointment. Figuring a few hours to get the main and jib back in place, we hope to sail Ravenswing tomorrow afternoon. If any locals want a maiden voyage reprisal, plan on getting to our normal Marina Bay dock by noon, and call me in advance. Otherwise, let me know when you want to go out; we’ve got a lot of pent up sailing to do before the winter rains come.

Monday Oct 22 – the mast arrives at Bay Marine in Richmond! It’s being loaded on a car/toy-hauler trailer this Friday in Massachusetts, sharing a ride with three Stillwater rowing crew coaches’ boats. We’ll need just a couple of hours to run in the halyards, attach the standing rigging and bolt on the new wireless wind direction/speed instrument, then the crane lifts it aboard. Jim is coming down from Oregon. Carlos thinks he can make it. Anyone else want to stand up the new stick and hank on those sails? The goal is to go sailing Tuesday 10/23.

I’ve got about 10 days now to get all the sailing gear details sorted. We’ll record those for you …

The old mast’s wimpy gooseneck was tossed, and you saw the massively stronger setup on the mast a few posts back. Back at home now the boom inboard end is being modified to fit. We came out of Composite Engineering with a beefy hard-anodized aluminum toggle. The boom needs internal structures to receive that.

PS – vac baggers: Comp Eng draws all their stuff down to 30inches mercury after meticulous wetout or infusion of resin. I’m not going to worry anymore about oversqueezing parts. Press it in nice and tight!

With both G10 blocks bonded and carbon-skinned, we lined up under the drill press for a 5/8″ boom articulation pin.

With everything test fit, we bought a new carbide Sawzall blade and started shaping.

Without the mast, I’m having to look back at the photos and approximate measure as to whether or not I’ve rebated away enough of the boom end for vertical and lateral swing. There’s a little more grinding to do tomorrow (curve marks in last photo). We’ll go ahead and paint it as is, and hope no further cutting is needed after it’s fit to the mast.

Gotta say, pretty darned relieved not to be driving cross country right now to fetch the big stick! Got a pro doing it.

Our team back in Mass. is rocking on. Photos show they’ve final trimmed the foot, sorted out the diamonds placement and they’ve got the sail track 200+ holes drilled. Jeanne and I think the paint looks fabulous.

Bummer that this is not going to fit into the 53′ container. We missed by about 4″. So we’re scrambling on other options. Might be a road trip after all.

Any builders following this on the I-80 corridor? Maybe a drop in visit from Team Ravenswing should be arranged :)