Thanks Alan.

Sounds like pulling the mast was a good solution for you and glad to hear it went well.

We are primarily focused on replacing the 20 year old standing rigging, but several “experts” have recommended pulling the mast to check the base. I wonder if that is more of a concern with a keel stepped mast as the base has greater potential for sitting in sea water and is not as readily observed on a regular basis. Did you find any issues at the base/deck interface? Is there a pad there that needed replacement? And as you said, repairs up and down the mast are certainly easier when it is horizontal and bench height.

I was able to locate Olivier’s instructions on the old Yahoo BB and attached them here for reference within the current bulletin board.

We also will depart the Chesapeake, on or around November 3, bound for Martinique. Let’s stay in touch.

Mike Ondra

Aletes SM#240

Rock Hall, Chesapeake Bay

Hi Mike, yes we have just finished with the rerig. We pulled the masts which for us was the best way for us to go. We have only had the boat less than a year so we had no idea what condition all the parts were in, jib furler, gearboxes, motors etc so having the masts down allowed us to pull everything off in a much easier way. We were also able to remove old wires from each mast and renew, changed out the steaming light, paint touch up corroded areas, servicing the manual furler gearboxes mizzen and main were accomplished much easier. I felt there was no time pressure if something went wrong.
I watched a boat in Ft Lauderdale get there rigging replaced in the slip and if that's all you are doing then I would have no concerns doing that but for us we had a lot of extras to do.
One of the main reasons we did the rigging now and not wait till Martinique was we were getting a lot of mast pumping and could not get rid of it. Once the riggers had tuned it the pumping was even worse and they had no solution to it even after I had shown them the tuning write up so I loosened everything off and followed the directions explicitly and what do you know no more pumping. I'm sure it's not tight enough but I hope to bump into some SM's shortly and check tension with them and we still plan on heading direct to Martinique in Nov.
Acmo rigging was just as advertised, perfect.
Price for the crane was about $600 each way and all the riggers did was remove and replace the masts and do their tune.
Hope this helps
Regards
Alan Grayson
SM 406 Ora Pai
Annapolis