Prepping the mast to be raised was no small undertaking - we had to strip the old mast, add all those fittings (plus wiring and halyards) to the new mast, then join them together....
Once that was all done, we raised the mast on the boat, measured and cut the remaining rigging, dropped the mast, fit the new rigging, then raised it again. It was on the second occasion we almost lost our new mast - I'm not kidding, we were about 2 minutes away from it coming crashing down.
I owe a HUGE thanks to Olly from Mars (who sadly departed this morning for Madeira with his lovely wife Issy) who helped us salvage the situation - basically, a line that was meant to stop any tangles in the rigging, caused one almighty tangle that meant we could only connect the bare minimum of wires. The tide was dropping which meant we were running out of time to get the job done, and I was at a loss as to how to get more lines connected to secure the mast (at least in the interim until we could free the tangled line). In the end, the only solution was for me to quickly climb the mast without a harness. I was 11m up the mast freeing that line when the crane operator advised us the lifting hook had come loose - had Olly not had the foresight to connect a fore and aft line *just in case*, quite simply we would have lost the mast, and I would've been thrown either into the harbour or onto the pier. It really was that close, and we were very thankful to have someone so experienced helping us set the mast.
After that fun, Lauren and I had a very quiet day, absorbing what had almost happened and getting the remaining rigging connected so as to get the mast as secure as possible.
The rest of the week was slightly less eventful, getting the mast ready for test sailing and also taking care of chores.... we've had some great weather recently, so time to catch up on washing.
There was also a beach BBQ as the weather is still hovering around the mid 20's (C).
Last up, a friend of ours was sailing from Falmouth to La Coruna, a distance of about 550 miles. This trip would normally only take 5 days and we were getting concerned by day 7 that something had happened, so notified the Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre (MRCC). To their credit, they kept us regularly updated and our friend was located just north of La Coruna, 10 days after setting off. It sounds like he's got some damage and the weather held him up a bit, but we're very fortunate as sailors to have as great a service as the MRCC. I'm sure there'll be beers and tales to tell when he makes it down to Nazare.
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