hi everyone and welcome to episode 4 in the team way swarms of wonderful series
in these videos we look at some of the unique features that have helped make
Wharram catamarans so popular previously we've looked at the wind vane self
steering system how and why these boats are held together by lashings and the
features that make these catamarans so safe and stable the playlist can be
found here in this episode we're going to look at two different methods for
mast lowering by hand using the Wharram methods for an equal masted schooner
being able to lower your mast by hand is useful for many reasons not least of
which it can save you money it would have cost us at least $1,000 in crane
hire to drop and then raise our masts at La Belle to see how we did it
fast forward to 6 minutes 14 make sure you don't miss our videos by subscribing
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this week Hurricane Irma makes a direct hit on Luckyfish while we watch it all
unfold from Mongolia we return to Florida to see the damage and lower both
masts completely by hand following our trip into the countryside
to take our minds off hurricane Irma we return to Ulaanbaatar to check wind speed
observations at Okeechobee Airport and try to contact people at the yard
incredibly the storm began drawing in cold dry air just hours before the
dangerous northeast quadrant passed over Luckyfish
the highest recorded wind gusts were 75 knots
fortunately well below the 105 knots that had been forecast
We left Ulaanbaatar early November bound for Florida
What a shot!
after renting a car we stopped off near Fort Lauderdale on the
kind invitation of Ric one of our viewers
We are making ice cream here
No, no, thats the real McCoy
looking forward
you've come here to eat ?
Bit of computer time in Mongolia, and this is what happens
No we didnt, we came here to lose weight
Is that how you lose weight?
It's not starting well.
It's going to be a sweet frozen gravy custard
degenerate spicy too good cheese this one fried potatoes and bacon
green beans out of vinegar and beautiful
had some pretty interesting conversations from time to time in Tommy
and sows videos so it's great to sit down with them some of their
conversations from one of the channels
thanks Rick for making us so welcome in your home make it stop of salt swinging
into the hard stand we were greeted by this sight noticeably all boats that had
been blown off their stands were trimarans
we felt bad for our friends the assailing plans delayed while repairs
had to be made so after four months we're back at lucky fish and they're
really happy to be here and looking forward to the jobs we have planned but
first things first we've just came down to the boat and
opened up the hatches this morning it's in great condition obviously doing a lot
of rain here in Central Florida that's really good to see the boat came through
EMA just fine we had talked on top the M we'll show you that shortly and it just
kept a lot of the leaf litter on the boat Dinks are green the inside of the
boat looks fabulous we use the mildew side and it really did the job so happy
with that this is how we live now yeah like prairie dogs but right now we're
just going to strip the you take bath off and give the boat a good scrub
I can't believe that's lucky fish what happened to your home just on the
outside right and insides good coming to the boat I made some lunch what are you
doing well it's day three here at LaBelle and Lazaro and I have just spent
two full days the two of us just to get the outside of the boat clean again but
not looking too bad now so now the real work can begin then today I'm going to
take the bimini top off get the boat ready to drop both masts so we can
relocate the radar dome and the wind generator to the main mast well they for
and we had a good day yesterday we achieved what we set out to do get that
bimini top off and now it's sitting underneath the boat and ready to cut the
hole for the hatch today the plan is to get the four mast down that will
hopefully we'll get that done in a day it's only the second time we've taken
the masts down on lucky fish and this is the first time we've tried it without a
crane so we're doing it by hand should be interesting exercise hopefully goes
smoothly it's wait and see each mask came down using different
methods
for the full mast we use the halyard on the main mast to lower it
we wrapped a short strop around the mast a little above the halfway point and
held it in position using a halyard and a downhaul the main halyard which would
lower the mast was attached to this
after releasing the backstays it was a simple matter to push the foremast past
vertical and let gravity do the rest with the help of Kurtis who made his
campervan available to help us hold the mast and Robert who was working on
scrimshaw the whole process took less than 30 minutes it was yesterday that we
took the mast down without a hitch we moved the one pair of side stays forward
so they were in line with the pivot point at the base of the mast they were
there to prevent any youring motion on the Masters that came down in fact that
they did plumb and they weren't really required so that whole job went very
smoothly we spend the rest of yesterday making a wooden foot if you like for the
gin pole which we've set up on the main mast slightly different methods of
sponge in pole which is probably more conventional for a lot of boats given
that they only have one mast but we don't have that luxury of the stick and
mast with this one so we're using the gin pole and we'll see how that goes
I'll be doing the same thing with the side stays just moving them forward so
they're in line with the pivot point at the base of the mast more or less
doesn't have to be did spot on as it turns out and in fact we have nowhere to
attach them at that point on both the foremast and the main mass so we just
put them through the hole rails and then tied them down to the lashing strikes
last box well gin pole box
yeah
and what's gonna hold this down as a block system at the back they would have
a pulley system at the bottom the height of this thing
the ledger
like okay
man oh this is totally can
that's enough
feeling like a twin of it'll lost its way
it has it's not going down and there's nothing stopping it something's stopping
it maybe there is hope stand the first block and tackle ran out of scope we had
a spare strop on the gin pole to hook the second block up to the blocks jammed
each other at one point preventing the mast from coming down once the first
block was removed everything else went smoothly
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