Dismasted!

All right, that's not our boat - just wanted to see if you were paying attention!

Our boat, Valkyrie was involved in a little altercation with a railroad bridge. The bridge won.

So, what’s the damage you say? Unknown as yet. Rick thinks it’s probably not too bad, but it really can’t be assessed without taking down the mast. The top is pretty far up there (49 feet – the lowered bridge was 47 feet) and you can use binoculars, but you can’t totally see everything. Rick thinks that the mast itself is ok – if it turns out to be bent, then we’re talking about a whole different ball game. You can’t just bend it back. No, we’d have to have a whole new mast made, and that can’t be done overnight. We would definitely lose the whole summer for sailing, not to mention paying a real fortune.

The guys at the boatyard will take out the mast, but you have to make an appointment to have that done and they are booked for the next four days. Rick spends three days preparing the boat for mast removal, and three sleepless nights worrying about what we will find when the mast comes down. He has to remove all of the sails and halyards from the mast, disconnecting all the complicated wiring (lights, wind indicator, radar, etc.), plus he has to remove everything that holds the mast in place at its base. That includes roping up the cabin table that is normally bolted to the mast.

Meanwhile, the boat has no slip – we gave it up for the summer with the idea that it didn’t make sense to pay for an empty slip while the boat was in Maine. Rick has Valkyrie anchored in Canton, and when he wants to work on her he has no dock for easy access to equipment, and no electricity for power tools. Rick feels like he has to babysit the boat too, since it’s not on a secure mooring or tied up to a dock. What if the anchor should give way in a sudden storm and he’s not there? I've become a boat widow.

The day finally arrives and Rick motors the boat over to Tidewater Marina in locust Point. The guys hook up an enormous crane to the mast and carefully pull it out. They maneuver the mast over to the side of the dock and put it on big, wheeled sawhorses. Then they wheel it over to a spot in the yard where it can be worked on.

The moment of truth has arrived. Rick and the rigger inspect the mast and determine that the mast has made it through relatively unscathed. Various things will have to be replaced – for instance, the spinnaker attachment was mangled - but the mast itself just got some paint scrapes. The rigger tells Rick that this kind of thing (running into bridges) happens all the time. Somehow, I don’t think Rick finds this very comforting…

Mangled Spinnaker Crane

We’re still not sure when we might be able to leave for Maine. Rick wants to take advantage of the mast being down by making some improvements. There are things that he has wanted to do but thought it wasn’t worth taking the mast down for. You know, like your car mechanic will tell you, “As long as you’re in that part of the engine you should have your timing belt replaced, and this and that replaced, etc., etc.” Now he has a golden opportunity to do more work and spend more money! A number of parts need to be ordered, some specially made, and even though Rick can do most of the work himself, he still has to coordinate his efforts with the jobs that need to be farmed out.

The man at work

Meanwhile, Valkyrie has been moved back to Canton. She looks kind of pretty out there, even without her mast, don't cha think?