A couple of day sails and by the first week of October we decided to lay up early to ensure the planned work on the mast spars and rigging could be started before the now increasingly likely winter lockdown.
In March, Jake, of Rigger's UK, had reported a damp and soft area in way of the hounds, OK for the coming season but we agreed we would have the mast taken out, a year earlier than planned and have the rigging completely overhauled. Our insurer had agreed we could leave replacing the stainless steel standing rigging until 2022, this always seems an arbitrary "rule" that s/s rigging should be replaced every 10-12 years and we were grateful for our insurer's flexibility. However, this plan gives us an extra year to test it before sailing around Britain with the OGA in 2023.
During early October, laid up in the Park and Float at Ponsharden, we completed her laying up, including winterising the engine, whose fluids and filters had been changed and topped up. I had made a temporary boom crutch and used the jib pole to support the summer cockpit cover, independent of the spars. These were craned out by early November and all the rigging, radar etc removed.
We visited the boat and the yard on 5th December, for the last time until after Easter. Fortunately we were able to collect all the blocks, which I gave a lockdown, strip and varnish, while David Carne had some nylon sheaves made up, to replace the rusty galvanised ones. This, as well as eliminating a redundant mast band at the hounds and the radome, should considerably reduce weight aloft. The spreaders were replaced with carbon reinforced resin and the remaining galvanised fittings were cleaned and re galvanised after some additional pins to the pinrail band at the mast base band were added and some redundant brackets from the gaff hinge were removed. This further reduced weight and would enable the signal halyards to be made off at the base of the mast rather than being rolling hitched to the shrouds.
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The mainsheet blocks re varnished
