Another hot day working on the mast next to the old engine shed. Tom arrived in his van with the galvanised steelwork he had fabricated to hold the booms, rigging and sails to the mast.

I was a bit taken aback how big and heavy the pieces were when we offloaded them from his van. I’d only known them as drawings up until this point. 

First on was the main boom bracket which we had to lift over the end of the pole and position 6m from the bottom end of the 15m mast. Using a car jack to lift the 1 tonne of timber to get the bracket past the supports was a bit hairy as we hadn’t tried this so I wasn’t entirely sure whether it would work.

We also had to lift and prop up the timber high enough so that the extra steel support arms weren’t resting on the ground, while still making sure the pole was stable enough to eliminate the risk of it dropping down and injuring someone. Somehow we made the whole thing work with the jack, timber sleepers and some ratchet straps, much to our releif.

With everything in position Tom pilot drilled and screwed in the multiple carriage screws using the helical arrangement of screw holes myself and the engineers had designed. This then had to be packed with shims to take up the remaining gap between the steelwork and timber. 

We (mostly Tom) also fitted the mast band to the top of the mast to hold the halyard blocks which in turn holds up the halyards and the sails themselves. This was a big job, shaving and sanding the top of the mast to fit the metal band. We also installed the steel bands to the end of the booms to hold the sails and the tensioned steel cables required to strengthen the booms.

The last thing added was some pigeon/seagull spikes for the top of the mast. As Jay the rigger pointed out, if these weren’t fitted the sails would be streaked in seagull poo within a couple of days!

We ended the day with a swim in the marine lake to cool off.