[Public-List] Main sheave update

[John Birch]

Three words: Pull the Mast

Or get a Sikorski ; )

John


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Kris Coward" <kris at melon.org>
To: "Alberg 30 Public List -- open to all" <public-list at lists.alberg30.org>
Sent: Monday, May 16, 2011 2:42 PM
Subject: Re: [Public-List] Main sheave update


> On Mon, May 16, 2011 at 01:36:10PM -0400, John Riley wrote:
>> Aren't we getting a little melodramatic here?
> 
> Sorry about that, was just up the mast last night straightening out the
> windex. It was raining, it was dark, and it was a little cold, and much
> of the time there was a voice in my head repeating disbelief that "some
> damned fool would want to be up here with the upper shrouds
> disconnected".
> 
>> Even in our small town, there is an equipment rental firm that has
>> "cherry pickers" that are more than adequate to do masthead work on an
>> A-30, if you can get her alongside a proper seawall.  Many major
>> boatyards have some sort of bucket truck / lift assembly that can
>> likewise be used.
> 
> And these cost appreciably less than pulling the stick? It's not like
> pulling the stick is a terribly expensive or difficult operation. I do
> it every year with a handful of friends and a manually operated crane.
> It costs me an evening, some snacks, and a case of beer.
> 
>> Could one not use halyards, perhaps doubled and reinforced, to secure
>> the upper half of the mast for a short job?  They used to do stuff like
>> this on the square riggers, at sea, all the time.  The stays and lowers
>> are still in place, so it's not like the mast is an unsupported stick.
> 
> Depends on how many halyards are available. I figure 2 of them will be
> in use holding up the bosun's chair. I suppose if you've got enough
> spare line kicking around and an alternate location to attach it, you
> could run your own rope shrouds if short on halyards. That said, it's so
> straightforward (and useful in other ways, like inspecting the rig) to
> take down the stick, that the square riggers can't possibly have been
> working on a still-stepped mast for any reason other than the fact that
> there was no nearby crane with which to unstep the mast.
> 
>> A similar apparatus as used to pull the mast could be constructed to
>> help support it side-to-side, no?
> 
> Perhaps, but it begs the question: why bother?
> 
>> Pulling the mast may be BEST, and there are certainly other, very good
>> reasons, to pull the mast.  But there are also SAFE ways to do this job
>> without pulling mast, so that dropping the stick is NOT the "only"
>> choice here.
>> 
>> All it takes is a little planning, a cold objective eye to the dangers
>> and how to minimize them (there can be dangers in dropping the mast, as
>> well) and execution of a good plan with discipline to not cut corners.
> 
> If you're anywhere near a mast crane and not dropping the mast for a job
> like this, you are ipso facto cutting corners.
> 
> Sure dropping the mast isn't without peril (hell, 2 years ago I had the
> extra downhaul loop pop off the hook on the crane; of course the sling
> was still well hooked, and the downhaul was still attached to the sling,
> so there was no damage, but any of my friends who were helping out that
> year are quite happy to help me reinforce the point that you never stand
> under a hoisted mast), but it's also nowhere near the big deal that some
> people make it out to be. This is even more the case with a deck stepped
> mast like we've got on our A30s.
> 
> Cheers,
> Kris
> 
> P.S. I'm probably also just really cranky because this reluctance to
> pull the mast reminds me of the time I helped a friend move his boat
> through the Erie Canal, and when we were putting up his stick at the
> other end, we had to wait for the mast crane in line behind a bunch of
> folks who had clearly never stepped a mast before in their lives, and
> thought it to be some sort of immensely difficult black art or
> something. Naturally we helped them, but good god were they ever
> neurotic about it all.
> 
> -- 
> Kris Coward http://unripe.melon.org/
> GPG Fingerprint: 2BF3 957D 310A FEEC 4733  830E 21A4 05C7 1FEB 12B3
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