[daydreamer92]

Husband worked on new mast for the Ospray yesterday. Today he got a root canal. I bet he liked the mast stuff better.

We bought a turnbuckle to repair the "repair" a Previous-Previous Owner had done for the headstay, which was tie a bunch of knots to secure a short length of rope between the broken end of the turnbuckle and the ... ah poop, blanked on the name, the u-shaped thingie that you put a clevis pin in the end of to secure a stay to it. Husband isn't sure how to put the new one on, but I bet Don Casey will tell him how via one of our books. ::clings to This Old Boat and the other big blue one::

We also needed three tangs for the mast since the iron splint repair had put bolts through two of them and the third looked rusty. I looked at West Marine and the cheapest was about 12 bucks each, but would require us to drill holes through 'em. ("Need a drill press!" was the dubious opinion of West Marine desk guy, perhaps thinking, as a girl, I could not muster such a tool. "Mmhmm," I said, knowing husband has a drill press at work.)

But you have to order these things rather than have them at the store, and hell, I can do that and probably find cheaper stuff.

So I did. D and R Marine, which stocks a lot of Pearson and O'Day bits and pieces, had tangs for a Javelin which looked exactly on target, for like $5.50 each. They came in yesterday. All the rest of the fittings looked good enough to reuse.

Husband also sawed off the extra four or five inches of extruuuuuusion (I like that word) aka "mast without anything on it" and riveted on the mast head with a rivet tool I'd bought.

He kept grilling me about the tool. "You sure you got a rivet tool?" "Yes." "Was it like this one?" "Yes." "You sure?" "Yes, husband, I am sure."

Hmph. I think he just wanted to spend more money at Harbor Freight. BTW, if you think the lure of the catalog is tempting, don't go into the store. We went into it with an empty basket "Just here for a socket set!!" and came out $130 later. I got a $9.99 palm sander out of the deal. I also heard an older guy totally fail at the "quietly passing gas in a store" deal in the aisle next to me and had to keep my adult "I hear nothing!" face on while the 5 year-old in me was giggling up a storm. Hee. Anyway.

Where was I? Mast. Anyway, we got halfway up to turning our 24' extruuuuuuuusion into a proper mast when the drill decided it had enough. I think it heard my husband talking about another drill he wanted, a corded one that didn't randomly drop the bits out.

Drill: "Oh, suddenly I'm not good enough? Well F--- you!" ::quits::

Or maybe it just needed to be recharged.

So. That's where we stand with the Ospray. Tomorrow, paint is supposed arrive and then I can practice on a small boat what we'll need to do on the BIG boat.

Pictures when we get done with the mast. It really just looks like a big aluminum pole right now.