Our last maintenance item is to mount a new wind instrument at the top of the mast. Our 23yr old sensor is stuck and won't rotate to give wind direction.
Sue goes up the mast for any mast repairs as she doesn't want to be hoisting me.
One obstacle in going up the mast is that the hoisting halyard and the safety halyard are on different front/back of the mast which means when you pass the spreaders, you have to disconnect the safety line, run it over the spreader, then reattach.
Up at the top and getting to work. Sue has to remove the old sensor device and insert the new one. A fairly easy job if all goes according to plan, which is rarely the case.
New sensor in place.
We had a momentary scare as the new sensor was not passing data to the instrument at the helm. We reinstalled the old sensor and learned that we had to recycle the power. Put the new sensor in place and recycled power and all is working perfectly.
Time for some sightseeing and photos as long as you are 55feet up with the birds. Looking to the west up Chisman Creek.
The view to the east down the creek towards the Chesapeake Bay.
Other things to check while up the mast. Our anchor (white) and tricolor (red on port side) light is in good condition. The windex to the right is working fine.
Long ways down there to the deck. In the old square rigger sailing days the topmen went up 3 times higher than this.
All maintenance completed. Now its time to provision the boat. This Fall, we are only going for two weeks to New Bern, NC, so not as onerous as 3 months to the Bahamas with no grocery stores.
The Island Packet has lots of room to store things but we also have to store spare parts, emergency flares and sextant, emergency bilge pumps, tools, electrical parts, fiberglass repair, 4 types of oil, filters, etc. And one compartment for the spinnaker. Every compartment is full of something.
