“Time to get a new mast!” said Jeremy on Tuesday morning at 6:45. We’d set an alarm so we could meet the driver at the yard. Let’s go!

As usual, John and Matt at True North Boatworks did a fantastic job, from being accommodating about the early hour for forklift work to helping out with moving the mast onto the sawhorses and even joking around with the truck driver. John runs the kind of yard he’d like to haul out at, and it shows.

I took more videos than stills of the process and put those on my instagram if you want to see them. Watching the truck, with a 75’ mast on a 53’ trailer behind him, maneuver around the corner was something to behold, especially coming out of the unexpectedly misty morning we had.

Jeremy hopped up onto the trailer to rig a loop of line that the forklift could hook to, and Matt angled the forklift into place, picking the mast up just enough to clear the racks on the truck. John, Jeremy, Jerry, Mitch (the driver), and I got into position to get the mast on our shoulders: the hiccup with this plan is that all the guys are at least 6 inches taller than I am, and the mast didn’t come anywhere close to my shoulder. Hard to help when I’m too short! Matt lowered the stick so all the weight was on the men, and off they marched, around the front of the truck and to the side of the boat where we’d set up sawhorses ready to receive the mast. It took less than 5 minutes to move the mast to its safe spot on the ground.

Selden did an impressive job packing the mast. Everything was labeled with Jeremy’s name and the kind of boat it is, from the mast to the boom to the spinnaker pole. Each piece was wrapped in padding and heavy duty plastic, wrapped well with packing tape. There was a separate, very heavy duty crate, similarly marked, with all the “loose bits” - the rigging, the turnbuckles, the cleats. Inside the crate, each coil of wire was labeled as to what it is. I love that they put our boat name on each one!

Right now, we’ve got the old mast on one side of the boat and the new mast on the other. If the sun ever comes out again, Jeremy’s planning to fly the drone overhead to take a photo for posterity. The old mast is disappearing this weekend when Anne and Andrew from Restoring Rosalind come pick it up: it will have a new life as part of an old Cornish lugger!

The mast needs some work before we can step it. The cleats and blocks need to be installed, the masthead instruments set in place, and we still haven’t situated the mast step inside the boat. We’re trying hard to stay focused right now on the things that MUST be done to move aboard more comfortably; as much as we want to see this mast in its proper place, it will have to wait for a little while.

Still. This feels monumentous!