Home

Placeholder page

The boom saga........

As I mentioned in the post about getting a mast, along with the wooden mast that turned out to be useless, I got a repairable wooden roller-furling boom from the same vessel. I'd laid the boom on the deck of the boat while I prepped the new mast. Well, a few days before I got the mast stepped I went down to the boat to find out that the boom was gone!

It turns out that John Fowler, the old owner of the Monsoon (The boat the boom came from) is, to put it politely, "A bit different". It seems that he feels that little things like paying his yard dues were below him, and that a mere $15,000 in unpaid fees was no reason for the yard to have taken away, and scrapped, his boat. I had made the mistake of calling him to ask about possibly buying the mainsail from the boat, and once he knew where the boom had gone he snuck down to Berkeley Marina and stole it right off my deck.

Seems he didn't feel he should have to pay mortgage payments either, so he now lives in a trailer somewhere in San Leandro, which makes it almost impossible to find him to get it back. The Sheriffs are looking for him, but that left me with no boom.

I asked around as to anyone that might have a large boom for sale, and was advised to go see Svendsens boatyard in Alameda. They did indeed have a suitable boom in their boneyard, but it was a like-new Selden deep-profile boom, complete and fully equipped. That meant that it was clearly well outside my budget. Or it was until Sven, the yard owner, quoted me a literally jaw-dropping price for it, that moved it solidly into my budget! Thank you Sven!

Here's the boom tied to the roof of my son's truck in Svendsens. It's a big boom, but just transportable this way.

Here's a picture of the mast end of the boom. It's in literally like new. I still, of course, need a mast bracket and a gooseneck.

Now she starts to really look like a sailboat!

Stepping the mast

Well it's time, finally, to get the mast stepped. This isn't a trivial job for a boat this big. She's long enough that the yard crane can't reach out far enough and high enough to lift the mast into place while the boat lies alongside at the dock. She has to be lifted back out by the travel lift, the mast lifted into place, and then the boat put back.

I actually didn't mind this, as it would give me a chance to eyeball the anti-fouling I did a couple of months ago, and see that it had held up after the launch, as well as to check all the zincs were secure.  The boat came out on Jan 20th, and I carefully checked it out.

The results were pretty good. There was one place where the anti-fouling had a gap of about 4 or 5 inches in it and the strontium primer was showing through -

The yard gave me a brush and some paint and I patched it up while they got ready to lift the mast.

Here's the mast foot as the yard lifts it up to get it stepped. The big crane allows them to lift it with slippable slings around the two spreader levels so that once it's in place they can be released without anyone going aloft.

Here's the mast hanging in the slings. With a crane like this lining it up and puting it onto the step is easy.

Here the boat is, still in the slings, but with the mast stepped and the stays - except the backstay - rigged and connected. The backstay has to wait till she's in the water as the rear cross-member of the travel-lift would be in the way.

The mast's up. Here's my son playing 'Mast Monkey' to connect up the wiring for the spreader lights.

It's a sailboat !