The last couple of weeks have been busy and I’ve fallen way behind on my blog updates.
I will try to catch up a bit starting with today’s update and working backwards with other posts to cover my time in Newport and Block Island.
Morpheus and I pulled into Safe Harbor Pilots Point Marina in Westbrook, Ct. last Thursday. I got to work immediately.
Here is some of our work list
Generally, things went very well and on schedule. However, we had a bit of a problem getting the mast out of the boat.
The base of the mast sits on three 3/4″ aluminum plates. When the mast goes in we initially only have one plate under the mast and it is easy to adjust all of the shroud turnbuckles, then you pump up the in-mast hydraulic ram with a plunger that pushes down through a hole in the mast base plate and lifts the mast.
We’ll in the eight years since the mast was pulled, the hydraulic plunger and the mast base became one via the magic of galvanic corrosion.
So, the mast and shrouds were a full tension and we had to use a 3′ set of crescent wrenches to carefully spin off the turnbuckles on deck to get the mast out of the boat.
Everything worked out, but with more drama than I was expecting. Ask Deb, I tend to get cranky when stuff on Morpheus doesn’t work as it should.
Once the mast was out, I spent the next day and a half removing halyards, shrouds, spreaders, etc. The yard has a great rigging shop and has really figured the storage thing out! Mast on racks with lifts to put it in place. Spreaders on hooks, and mast wand hanging above the spreaders!! Impressive.
That was the most exciting bit. Other than Debbie showing up Monday evening after driving from Florida via Charleston!
The two of us spent the next two days working full on to get through the rest of the list. Everything went well, and best of all the diesel service found no major issues, not even minor ones actually!! The engine now has 9,820 hours on it and was last serviced two years ago by EMV Marine in Barcelona, Spain. EMV does great work!!
Thats about it.
The yard was very talented and helpful. They were great about allowing me to take care of as much of the work as possible, but there within minutes if I needed some help or advice.
Special thanks to Peter McCloskey who seemed to magically show up anytime we struggled with things.
Bottom Line: I am not particularly happy to leave the boat, but thrilled that we decided to bring it North and leave it with the Safe Harbor, Pilots Point team.
Morpheus Sailing 