This was a day of mixed emotions. It had become part of the ‘landscape’ in the park and in my mind. One the one hand I will miss seeing the sail there, looking to see how much and in what direction it had turned since last saw, watching people (and the weather) interact with it. And on the other hand, will not miss the feeling of responsibility and the bit of me that worried that it had been blown over, creating havoc (or worse) in that busy public park.

The team that took the structure down were excellent. They arrived with a cherry picker and lorry with a hiab crane arm to take down the main pole. Taking down the sails themselves and the rigging was a smooth operation from the cherry picker. Removing the booms from the metal brackets took a lot of welly and some fancy hiab choreography!

Removing the mast itself was challenging. For a time it looked like the mast wouldn’t come out at all with the crane arm practically lifting the lorry off the ground as it pulled upwards on the mast! Interestingly, the men on site used a hand winch which was actually able to start to budge the pole inch by inch. We watched with relief as the pole emerged from the ground tube, painfully slowly, but moving!

Once out of the ground, the plastic inside tube that formed the bottom part of rotating mechanism within the ground tube was cut off and the grout surround chiseled off. The metalwork was also removed leaving the bare wooden pole which was loaded on to the lorry, to be taken away for reuse.

The sails, rigging, steel brackets came home with me for reuse another day. The booms were left by the engine shed to be collected later as too big for my car as they were.