So almost fresh from having delivered t'other Dave's boat (see last post) to her winter home, this week it was time for Rod's boat (Ami-Ly) to come out..
In order to bring us up to speed though, and by way of a brief interlude, over the weekend we'd been observers on a work party at the club to drop the mast on t'other Dave's boat (he has some work to do on it over the winter). The guys in my club have been doing it this particular way for some time, but I've only ever seen it once, and Rod hadn't seen it at all so we decided to mooch along, have a watch, and generally heckle t'other Dave to make him feel loved and wanted.. 
Going to guess "Ransom" is about a 27 footer so this is not an insignificant mast, bigger than you could do with an A frame for sure, no tabernacle just a single hinged/coach roof fitting. When she'd been lifted he made it known he wanted to take the mast down so she'd been placed between two similarly sized boats. What then happens then is that block and tackles are rigged from the main halyards of the boats either side, with the bottom of the tackles being connected to a loop/strop that goes round the mast on the boat having the mast taken down. The strop is hauled up the mast to just about the balance point, and then tied tied off. Taking up the slack on the two tackles means the mast is fully supported from the masts of the two other boats via the strop.. rubbish diagram as follows..
Dave then undid all the stays, slipped out the bolt holding the foot, and people on the two side boats haul in on the tackle to just lift his mast a couple of inches - you can then have a couple of people walk the foot of the now freed mast forward (or backward depending on requirement) as the crews on the two side boats let out their lines at at an even rate - until the mast sits in its cradles fore and aft.. bloody amazing... and yeah I know Nelson's sailors would have been doing that in their sleep, but we aren't Nelson's sailors.. to attest to the efficacy of this, I was on Dave's boat to walk the mast forward at the relevant point and there was less than half a stone of weight to control...
Anyway, I digress.. Rod's had Ami-Ly almost from new, but that cracking sail we had back from the Hamble the other week [clicky] had focussed his mind* on the fact that all the standing rigging is original, and it must be getting on for 15 or more years old..
*38 knot gusts have a habit of doing that.. focussing the mind, that is..
Plans were made by him then, and in addition to the usual winter lift out, Rodders also engaged a local rigger to take the mast off, and replace the rigging during his winter layup - happily all this could be done at his usual winter stopover spot.. interestingly the cost of having a single someone do that worked out only a couple of hundred more than Rod doing some of the the stuff himself and subcontracting for others, so a no-brainer..
Short trip round from his home base then, we were soon ready for lift.. now this was quite interesting, as the rigger turned up as we went in to the hoist.. then I noticed that hoist has a HIAB type crane on the front of it, this was going to be a bit different to the Nelson'ian approach we'd seen last weekend.. as it turned out, not that different though - looped strop, check, tied off, check, hook from the crane, on to the strop, lift, and after that walk the foot to the back, where it was then lifted on to a trolley and taken away - not that different at all - just a bit more hydraulic than last weekend..
Then the lift out.. pressure washed (the bottom was very clean) - note the wing keel by the way
Interesting - they put the boat on the cradle while still in the lift out strops, and then carry the boat - in cradle - to where it's staying..
So that's it - all three boats out and safe.. better start getting ready for next season then..
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