Mast be an easier way...

Way back when we had the survey done just before buying Marelle, the surveyor (Tony Head, great guy) tested the antiquated wind instruments (EMI Marine Electrawind and Electravane), and said how nice it would be to keep them in place if we did fit a modern set. Oh how much trouble has that statement caused us!

First of all, Universal sent someone up the mast before it was stepped to remove the wind vane. Now this was done, and billed to us, as being necessary to protect the wind vane during the process of taking the mast down. However, in doing this they broke one of the cups off.

Try as I might, I could not find a replacement. We tried Foulkes & Sons, where they had all the bits except the wind cups, and someone helpfully said they could make a new one for £100 - ouch! We scoured Beaulieu Boat Jumble, eBay, general internet, visited local plastics companies, but no luck. Universal themselves told us that we would be better off removing the old instruments altogether - handy that, seeing as they had broken them.

Meanwhile, the actual stepping of the mast. Now this should be straightforward - it is an operation carried out hundreds of times a year, and the basics of it are surely not that different whether the boat is 1 year old or 45 years old - Marelle even has a deck stepped mast as well which must be easier to remove than a keel stepped one. Indeed, most boatyards offer this at a fixed fee - £100 at Deacons, or even less than that next door at the Elephant. Sadly for us, stepping a mast has become horrendously complicated at Universal Marina. HYS are the incumbent boat lift operators, and a few years ago used to also have a crane so they could do masts as well. This was great, but unfortunately the crane bit the dust and HYS have not replaced it - Universal Marina is not their main marina, just a secondary outpost. So, now Universal Metre Shed (now called Universal Yacht Care)have to book another company to bring a crane, and use up two of their own people to supervise it, and coordinate the timing of the boat movements by HYS with the crane company's availability, and all of this costs a lot of money, which they pass on to - yes you guessed it - the unsuspecting boat owner. £508.20 to be precise. Just to take the mast down (and break the wind vane).

Tony had advised replacement of the tricolour light at the top of the mast, and I wanted to put an LED light on to save on power, as the tricolour is used while sailing. After a lot of investigation, I came to the conclusion that Lopolight, although expensive, were the best, and duly ordered a full set of Lopolights for Marelle. Unfortunately, Martin did not agree that the rest of the lights should be replaced so I sent them back. Here's the original light fitting, with the attachment for the Electravane windvane at the base of the light fitting, covered in tape.

The new Tack Tick wind vane was mounted on a new metal plate welded on to the arm holding the VHF aerial, and Universal Yacht Care removed the light fitting from just above the Electravane attachment point, and put the Lopolight on top of that, with a spacer block to raise it up an inch or so. Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of this, but it did look quite neatly done. They also put a new fitting on the light/Electravane wiring, although both had been working fine before. Doing this has shortened the wire that runs through the mast, so that now it's back up I have another job to connect in a second piece of 12 core wire, to get things back to as they were.

I had also got a special top for the Lopolight, with a cut-out and a stalk to fit a Windex to. We tried fitting this, but the Windex arrow fouled the VHF aerial, so took it back off again. Not impressed with the boatyard's solution - “oh we can just bend the aerial out, we do that regularly it will be fine”.

The worst part of this is Martin says it all has to be redone because the light is not high enough up to be seen from deck. We'll find out for sure when I have connected up the wiring - I have got all the bits now, the extra piece of 12 core, and lots and lots of connectors. I am a bit worried it will not look very good as the 12 connections make it a bit bulky (it runs from the mast across the heads ceiling and into a cupboard). I'll do the best I can though - it's not worth getting an electrician in.

Next Universal said there was a broken bottle screw, and to find it they had to service all the bottle screws on the mast. I was tasked with finding a replacement but I could not find one the right size in the spares on the boat, so was a bit worried it would cause a problem - but magically the broken bottle screw got fixed! Apparently there was some debate over whether it was indeed broken, and in any case now it's fine.

A new set of wooden chocks were made for the base of the mast. The original ones had been smashed to pieces getting the mast off; a problem that Tony had predicted, as the wood had swelled and was holding water against the mast, causing some corrosion. I am not sure what to do with this new set, as they have been left all different heights which does not look great. Perhaps I should make a cover for the base of the mast so they don't get as wet.

Finally, the mast went back up, without either the old Electravane windvane, or the new Tack Tick one, and to cap it all in the process Universal lost the wire halyard up the inside of the mast.

We kept Marelle at Universal Marina for two weeks before they put the Tack Tick wind vane on and retrieved the halyard. We are still working on fixing the Electravane windvane.