Re-rigging Day 9: The gods still live in Tasmania

Good things happen.
First, the rain holds off - it doesn't start until about 4:30pm, when everyone is ready to knock off anyway.

Undoing the forestay

Rigger going up

Coming down, with Windex

Rigger Ian arrives at 8:30am and starts undoing more turnbuckles. When his mate Chris arrives, Ian goes up the mast, unhitches the furler and forestay at the top, takes off the Windex wind indicator, On the way down he ties ropes making a sling between the two spreaders on the mast, ready for attachment to the crane.
Once he's back on deck we all help to take the forestay and furler down, laying them out on Ian's trestles. Second good thing - the length of spare dyform wire that Ian has is just the right length for a new forestay - with less than a metre over!
Chris and Ian pull out the old wire, put in the new, and we watch with interest as they run it through the swaging machine that Ian has in the back of his station wagon. Ian, Chris and the captain wrestle with recalcitrant screws on the bracket that holds the furler, but with no success - they will have to be drilled out.

Crane goes up

With everything done that can be done on the forestay, we have a tea break, then as the crane still hasn't arrived, Ian and Chris go off to do a bit of work on another boat, captain and mate have lunch, then attempt to refold the headsail, bundled rather untidily in the back of the car after removal last week. Marginal improvement.
Crane arrives about 1pm and we watch as what seems to be a quite small vehicle transforms itself into a crane tall enough to reach above Nahani's mast.
The hook is swung in and attached to the sling Ian rigged this morning, then pulled up tight. Ian and Chris undo the four remaining shrouds, and then comes the moment when they tap out the hinge from the tabernacle and the mast swings free.

Mast comes down

It is then expertly led gently over the rails, guided down to ground level still more or less vertical, then lowered expertly on to the trestles, It looks so easy. We are relieved, especially as we discover that the crane driver hasn't driven this particular crane before, and had to have a little practice to check which levers were which before picking up the mast.

With the mast down, work begins on pulling the old shrouds through the spreaders, and threading new wire. Rigger and captain also investigate the source of an irritating flapping noise that we experience in certain windy conditions, when the electrical conduit vibrates inside the mast. It's held in place by a series of pins through the mast, but we discover that two or three of these are missing, allowing the conduit to move. While the captain is investigating and working out a replacement strategy, and the riggers are rigging, the mate is doing some very minor patching on the hull, in the odd places where the antifouling has flaked off completely.

Naked lady

Riggers leave, and we're just starting to tidy up and bring tools and equipment back aboard when the rain starts. Hoping it all happens tonight, and it's not too wet tomorrow.

To see the videos, search for Re-rigging Nahani on YouTube.