What Goes Up... — Harris Crew

Sep 21

Sep 21 What Goes Up...

I’m not a lover of heights which, if it weren’t for Megan, would be a bit of a problem when there’s a job to do that involves going up Matriarch’s 70-ish foot mast. Thankfully Megan doesn’t mind at all and for some reason even enjoys it, so when it comes time to do anything up in the rig she hops into the bosun’s chair and I winch her up the mast from my preferred position solidly planted on the deck.

Megan sitting comfy in her happy place ready to ascend. She tells me it’s a great chair - we won it at the Easter Seals silent charity auction at the Oakville Yacht Squadron and we had no idea at the time how much we would appreciate it (well, how m… — Megan sitting comfy in her happy place ready to ascend. She tells me it’s a great chair - we won it at the Easter Seals silent charity auction at the Oakville Yacht Squadron and we had no idea at the time how much we would appreciate it (well, how much Megan would appreciate it).

This morning, the job was changing out the light bulbs in our steaming light (about halfway up the mast, used when we’re motoring at night), anchor light (right at the top, used at night to indicate we’re at anchor, duh), and masthead nav lights (right at the top, stacked above the anchor light, used to indicated to other vessels which side of Matriarch they are seeing at night). To send Megan up, she sits in our trusty bosun’s chair which we carried over from Exodus, we tie on a halyard for the primary hoist (best hope your bowline knot is a good one - Megan tied her own), and also tie a safety line from whatever spare halyard we have left running down from the top of the mast. In this case I had my faithful assistant Liam working the safety line while I got my cardio for the day by winching Megan up.

Time for a break while Megan is halfway up changing out the bulb for the steaming light.

Halfway up from Megan’s point of view. Easy breezy!

After taking a break when Megan was halfway up, I got back to work and hoisted her the rest of way to the top only to realize she couldn’t reach the tricolour light at the top from her position forward of the mast. Sheesh. We had to bring her all the way down then send her all the way back up again, only this time aft of the mast where she could reach the light at the top.

Nav light on top. Anchor light on bottom.

A couple of bulbs 70 ft up are no problem for Megan.

After getting her back up and in the right position this time it was only a few minutes before she had the bulbs changed out and took the time to measure the mast height both from the deck and the water (including instruments), just to be sure how much ‘air draft’ we need in the event of any bridge encounters. While she was on the way down, Megan also Inspected all the rigging and happened to find some chafe on the running backstays so good thing she looked. She showed me the pictures she took and we discussed replacing the the old, UV rotted tape as a precaution. So back up she went (that’s 3x for those counting) with a couple rolls of black electrical tape and the knife to finish the morning’s work. Easy to replace the chafed line but good thing we looked before we needed to use those backstays or we might not have known until we heard a “snap!”

Running backstay was chafing on the aft edge of the spreader. Will need to get this fixed. While up there Megan re-taped the spreader to help protect from the rubbing.

And finally what would a good morning’s work up the mast be without some sightseeing! I’m lucky Megan is confident enough using her phone to take pictures while 70ft feet up.

Megan’s view. Can you spot the good looking sailor texting on the bow?

I seriously appreciate how we balance each other out…this would all be so much more difficult if I had another me around. Feeling grateful this morning!