Greyhawk Crew,
After a week of back-and-forth with my rigging consultant (Collin Linehan at Chesapeake Rigging), and seeking advice from many others, I've decided that in the end, the rig is just not a place to mess around. (See December Progress Report for discussion of unstepping the mast for a rig survey)
So I'm going to go with the "complete package" in the Rigger's proposal. This will include new chainplates, as well as repairing the crack in the mast, replacing all of the rod-rigging (including turnbuckles), servicing the hydraulic cylinders for both backstay and vang, replacing the hydraulic system pressure gauge, adding a shiv-box to the front of the boom for single-line reefing, adding tangs and halyard blocks for a removable inner fore-stay and running back stays, fixing the check stays, installing a Shaefer System 2100 roller furler, replacing two halyards, installing lazy jacks, replacing all of the electrical wiring and installing a new masthead tricolor/anchor light, and prep and painting (Awlgrip) of both spars. Oh, and they're going to put the mast back into the boat and set it all up, too.
(In case you're wondering, although wire is less expensive than rod, and making up wire stays and shrouds is a DIY proposition, switching my rig from rod to wire would have required re-doing all the spreader bases, among other things, which meant that wire rigging would have cost more than new rods. Rod rigging does have the advantages of less weight and windage aloft, less stretch, and the potential for longer life than wire.)
All of this adds up to quite a few pretty pennies (several more than I paid for the boat itself, in fact) -- I'm really going to be scraping the bottom of the barrel to pay for this now (I do have some help from my "sponsor" -- Thanks!). But it is all work that I anticipated would need to be done sooner or later -- I just didn't anticipate doing it all at once! Much of it is work that I could not (and/or would not want to) do myself: welding aluminum, cold-heading the rod rigging, rebuilding hydraulic cylinders... Certainly some of the work I could do myself, including the painting and prep, electrical wiring, etc..., but I don't have the mast sitting at home -- it's 450 miles away! Plus, I do have a full-time job, and as my wife points out, she's the one who does all the painting around our house. That, and I really do want to go sailing this summer !-)
We're aiming to re-step the mast sometime during the week of March 13.
Report on the Re-stepping of the Mast
I'm really starting to look forward to our delivery voyage planned for the last week in June.
GREYHAWK's wicked good adventure
Regards,
Tim