May 15 -- 19 -- My Misadventure Up The Mast and Cleaning

Two days at the boat, about seven hours of work, with Lene helping and Mendy as well on the first day for two hours. So a total of 16 person hours. The first day's primary mission was to run the new spinnaker halyard up through the mast. I had bought 35 feet of sash chain and then securely sewed 30 feet of strong line to its end. I put tape around the joint so there was no rough edge to get snagged. The genious of this (I learned it from others) is that gravity pulls the weight of the chain straight down inside the mast.

Mendy controlled the electric winch, held the clutched main halyard and  pulled me to the top. There is no one I'd rather have holding the line by which I'm suspended 70 feet above the ground than Mendy and with Lene backing him up I felt secure. 
       Many friends have reacted to Lene's facebook post of these pictures with comments to the effect that I must be crazy. But the main halyard, securely shackled to the bosun's chain in which I sat, is only two years old, in great condition and tested to held thousands of pounds --  clearly secure against my 193.
The trick is to insert the chain/line tool at the top and let its weight pull itself to the deck. The next step is to fish the chain out of a narrow slot near the base of the mast. Then comes securely sewing the new halyard to the chain, taping that joint smoothly, and then to use the tool to pull the halyard up inside and the top of the mast. Simple, right?  (I had pulled a messenger line up through the mast using the old halyard itself when I removed that old halyard last fall, But that messenger had broken during the winter!)
Well I got up there, expecting to see the sheaves in the top of the mast, but they were covered by a sheet of metal. Good idea actually -- to keep out the rain. Our mini-SUV is just to the right of my right heel. If you expand the photo, you can see the new blue halyard laying on the deck, Mendy standing and casting a shadow on the starboard side of the boom and a piece of the sash chain hanging down on the left side of the picture.

       I asked Mendy to tie a Phillips head screw driver to the line I had lowered down and after he did so, I pulled up the driver (which I should have taken with me in the first place). But the screw was too tightly secured for me to unscrew it. Then in looking around I saw a block hanging off the side of the top of the mast, a smooth pad eye below it and a slot below that. I assumed that this block, pad eye and slot are for running the spinnaker halyard so I lowered my 60 foot long "tool" through the slot to the base of the mast for my crew to fish out. I had a very narrow needle nose pliers, a magnet and a bent wire coat hanger as fishing tools but none of them worked. That is because the entry for the tool and the halyard near the top of the mast is near the forward end of the mast and the "fishing hole" for its exit near the bottom is near the aft end of the mast, maybe four inches away. Ultimately, I tied off the tool aloft and was lowered to the deck, carefully and slowly, thanks guys!. So it was both an adventure and a misadventure.
Since then I have called expert rigger Jeff Lazar; this was not a task for an amateur like me. Maybe a very long, curved needle nose pliers?
During the rest of the time Lene cleaned and I put things away, reattached the antennae, tied off the lines so they would not slat against the mast, took the lids off the five gallon pails (not an easy job), etc. And while there is more cleaning to do, it will await another day.
Because ILENE was "ready" on time, the Huguenot is not charging me storage and I'm content to do the remaining tasks, which could be done after launch, before then. I took some aerial photos of the grounds and clubhouse which I have sent to the Huguenot.