Boy, as we docked up in Catskills at the Riverview marina we were greeted by a young man by the name of Craig.  We stayed the night on the dock at the gas pumps.  There was a boat on the wall where they remove your mast. We didn’t do much the first evening. We meet a couple going North in there trawler. We went out for dinner with them and had a great night.

Their names were Wayne & Vicki Bernhardt. They have a 36 Monk trawler named Cocomo.  We had an awesome evening with them. on our way back to the marina it decided to down pour on us.  Donna shared her umbrella with me.

 

The following morning we woke up at the break of dawn and dropped the head sail.  She needed some mending of the sun shade, so Bryce took out the machine and put her back together.  Craig came by and asked us to move over to the hoist area. So we did.

 

 

Head sail is put away, now comes down the main sail.

 

After getting the sails down, we had to build our frame to hold our mast. I printed out the photos that we had from when we had her un-stepped in St. Joseph Michigan.  We reproduced the supports.  Kenny, thank you for an awesome design.  Going up the Erie Canal we didn’t find a place to do it all.  We did everything here except the mast removal.  At one of the other marinas we could of removed our mast ourselves.   But they didn’t think they had any lumber that we could use.  Riverview was great.  They would make sure we had what we needed. They even have a store on hand with some supplies you might need even water pumps, toilet paper, cotter pins.  They supplied us with lumber, screws and screw bit.

 

Thank goodness Bryce brought all the tools we really had no room for. LOL

 

We had to remove the silicone from around the mast. I must say it really wasn’t that bad to remove it just a bit messy to clean up.  We use large line as the wedge, then fill it in with silicone.  It provides a relatively stiff support and water proof.  And relatively easy to remove during un-stepping.  There is a very expensive product you can buy that performs a similar function.

 

So it was finally time to remove the mast.  Jack & Bryce lifted Craig to the center of the mast where he placed the tourniquet around the mast to lift it out of the boat. We have a keel step mast so that makes it a tad bit longer the a deck mast. She is nearing the 60 feet mark.

 

It is always a bit scary when you lift someone up. I always have a fear of dropping Bryce, so I drink a few beers to calm my nerves.  Craig was done and the mast is secure and ready to be lifted out. Jack is the younger guy and hasn’t had much practice lowering Craig down a mast so he asked Bryce to do it.

 

I went downstairs to make sure all is well as they lifted her out. She seems so naked without the mast.

 

They are lifting her up and I am always biting my nails.  A thousand pounds worth of aluminum, cables and expensive electrical.

 

Boy, it sure is long.  Below we are placing the bottom of the mast on the bow support.

 

This is Mike. He is the owner of Riverview Marina. He is in control of where our mast is going..

 

Mast is almost down now. Our work continues; all instruments, lights, radar get removed.

 

The guys loaned Bryce a ladder so he could remove the instruments.  You are probably wondering why I am showing you this empty slip.  This is where our boat was. I wanted to show you that we were able to walk the boat back & fourth to either finger dock.  Using a step ladder on the finger dock, we remove everything that had to come off.

 

Noticed all the extra rope we carry just to make sure the mast can hold up all the lines backstays.  We been hit by some pretty big wakes by powerboats we rolled and rolled. Thank goodness Bryce is an over doer. Our mast didn’t move; only my nerves… 

 

Our final step was to add the bumpers and side board. This works very well in the locks.

 

The next morning we headed out on our way. This bridge was the first bridge we went under with our mast down but we still had room to leave her up.

 

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