Well, the mast came down this morning. It was an uneventful lift. I had pulled all the lower and cutter stays on Sunday, so just had the 4 stays to pull this morning and she lifted right out. Now for the bigger decisions; like how far down the rabbit hole do I go?
– replace the standing rigging?
– paint the spar?
– wire a proper steaming light?
– mast steps?
– replace the sheaves?
– add a spinnaker bail?
– replace the vhf cable? [is new cable better than old cable?]
I think at the moment, aside from a complete rewire, I’ll certainly put in a proper steaming light and replace the spreader fixtures with LED ones. That seems like a no brainer. The Anchor light is what this all came down for in the first place, so I’m certainly doing that. Since that’s happening I might as will run a dead circuit up in case the next owner wants to put a tricolor up there at some point in time.
Finish … I guess that I will look into cleaning & painting it myself, probably not a great job, but better than the chalk that’s on there now. That will involve some sanding, and pulling all the existing hardware that I’d want to paint near, and then some primer [maybe Interprotect] and then a couple of coats of paint [maybe Interlux perfection]
I’m going to pull all new wire, so I might as well pull new VHF antenna, and since I’m going to do it, I might as well do it right with RG-213, and then new connectors at the head, and base, plus a new pull to the radio at some point in time.
Since it’s down, and I’m there, I guess I should put a Spinnaker bail on there. It’s down, and not that hard really, not even that expensive really.
Then the elephant, replacing the standing rigging. Even if I did just the wire, I’m probably looking at $2K, and then If I also had to source all the tangs? another $1K if I could find them LeFiell is gone, custom made $2K more? I don’t know. It’s not worth it to me at this point, I don’t think. I know the rigging is probably 40 years old, but really it hasn’t been sailed much, and I’m certainly not taking Insolita offshore, it’s just not in my plans for her. The next owner, maybe? But the mast is down, and IF I was going to do it, now is the time …
