It’s been a long time since I (Skip) have contributed to the blog, so I’ll go over the re-rig/re-commission process that we went through several years ago.
You will recall that we spent the winter and spring of 2018 mastless and looking quite sad. Luckily our trusty Kubota diesel never missed a beat and we spent our time frequenting our favorite haunts in the BVI, finally hauling for hurricane season at Nanny Cay, BVI.
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| Stern to in Little Harbor, with half a mast |
In November 2018 I delivered an Outbound 46 from Newport south and used the opportunity to put items aboard that were needed to complete the re-rig process. Namely a new furling system and a new stove. The old stove was original (1979) and the oven portion had given up the ghost and we found that a nice Eno three burner would fit nicely. Upon arrival, I found Saralane just as we left her 5 months prior – free of mildew, odors and bugs. While on the hard, I removed the old stove, painted out the space, fashioned new blocks for the gimballs, and dropped the new Eno in – perfect!
Post Irma, boat builders and marine suppliers were backlogged due to the sudden demand. This was true for Selden Mast, and potential shipments were many months out. We opted to wait until the 2018 hurricane season was over before installing a new mast and coordinated shipping with the local Selden dealer, who was also importing several masts. I had also arranged for several other masts to be sent to Virgin Gorda and the combined orders were put in a shipping container and delivered to Tortola. The local dealer, Wickhams Cay Rigging, took care of all of the import duties and handling on Tortola. Ultimately, the container arrived at Nanny Cay about a week after I did. With the help of the Wickhams and Nanny crews, the masts were unloaded and inventoried. Selden is a Swedish company and uses containers to move mast components. The maximum length is 40’ – the length of a container – so our mast (58’) was in two pieces and needed to be spliced. The Selden office in Charleston is very professional and completely assembles the masts in their shop, then disassembles and preps them for shipping. At the end of the day, all went well. The most difficult part was lining up the two sections on rickety, uneven sawhorses and pulling the two parts together – by myself. After a few starts, it all came together. |
| New masts unloaded |
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| Saralane's new mast |
Several days later we launched Saralane and motored her around to the bulkhead on the reclaimed land to the east of Nanny Cay.  |
| Old mast = trash |
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| Old mast |
I hired a local crane operator, and with the help of a few cruising friends, the old broken stub of a mast was removed and the new rig stepped – all that I had to do next was make up the StaLok ends to the shrouds. Selden was reluctant to swage the new turnbuckles on to measured lengths, and so supplied the lower end of the shrouds cut, and the turnbuckles supplied with StaLok mechanical wire fittings. I temporarily stayed the mast with halyards and went to work on the StaLoks. The first was a little worrying, but once I got the knack – all went well. We stepped just before lunch and I had the port and starboard shrouds done before cocktail hour. We have a 7 X 19 backstay bridle that also needed to be swaged to length, so I engaged the capable folks at Wickhams Cay to swage the wire.
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| New mast is in |
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| StaLok fitting |
The last component was the headstay/furling gear, but I had made a commitment to do another delivery south from Norfolk but it was early December by now and I was running out of time. In the past we have kept Saralane at a slip next door to Nanny Cay at Manual Reef marina, so I moved her there (sans headstay) while I was on delivery and away for the holidays.
Fast forward to mid-January 2019 and we were back at Manual Reef and on board Saralane. All was well on board, there was even ice in the freezer! After doing another cleanup, laundry and some provisioning, we began building the furling gear. Manual Reef has a nice level concrete apron and elevated section that was perfect for putting the furling foils together. Selden has an excellent video that shows how to build the furler step by step. As with the mast stays, the furler had to be made to length that involved another StaLok – but by now it was fairly easy.
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| Nice work space, tools ready, Stalok prep, read the manual! |
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| Stalok adjustment, tightening, more adjusting, final fitting |
All was going perfectly until the final step when we discovered the feeder for the sail was the wrong size – and we couldn’t proceed without the correct one. Luckily, Wickhams Cay had one but it was closing time so we couldn’t quite complete the job the same day. We finished the next day, and with the help of a few marina mates, we hung the furler and got the jib on. We were a sailboat again!
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| Wrong size feeder |
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| Drawing an audience on the dock |
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| Even this little guy wanted to help |
But wait! On our first sail we found that the new to us backstay hydraulic cylinder was weeping slightly as was the hydraulic pump. Wickhams Rigging didn’t have rebuild parts so we made arrangements to have Island Rigging in St Thomas do the repairs – we could live with the weeps for a while. We made our way to St John (as planned) where we met up with Rob & Ellen on Miclo III and Steve & Eva on Foreva. Also in Francis Bay were Dave & Helen on Allegheny, the boat I delivered back in December. Dave had made arrangements for new electronics to be installed on Allegheny (all of the old stuff had failed on the way down) and asked me to oversee the work in Red Hook. This allowed us to take a slip for a week in Redhook and use the time to get the hydraulics serviced. With this completed, Saralane was now 100% and we were looking forward to the balance of the winter/spring to enjoy the BVI and USVI.
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| First sail with the new rig |
