A few posts ago I alluded to an issue with our roller furling headstay in the mast re-step day post, but didn’t go into much detail because I’d jury rigged a solution that I thought would work. My solution was pretty crude and frankly it wasn’t sitting well with us, so we decided to get an expert opinion…
The expert opinion we got wasn’t positive…basically the top section of the roller furling extrusion (where the forestay from the front of the boat meets the top of the mast) had sheared off. This we knew. What we didn’t know, was that the forestay itself had been damaged in the process, which could put the entire rigging system (AKA what holds the mast up) at risk. Basically we were looking at a new forestay and replacing the top extrusion of the furler. Further complicating the process, this would require disassembling the entire system and then reassembling it with our new part, something that came in quoted at up to 20 hours of labour.
-yes I know these all sound like technical terms for the uninitiated…if I lost ya, just scroll through the photos 
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We got a quote to do the work in the neighborhood of $3200 (WHICH SEEMED CRAZY!), so we asked the guy to let us do some of our own labour to get the hours down. He obliged, and we got right to disassembly with a blowtorch, awl, hammer, and vice grips as soon as the furler was down.
It all went really well except for ONE roll pin which took over 50% of total time spent to get it out.
Once disassembled, we sent the connection pieces off (to the guy assembling the new forestay) and are waiting anxiously to hear some good news about reassembly early this week. HOWEVER, since no one was working on the weekend…BACK TO NEW YORK CITY!!!
This time, however, we had the pleasure of meeting up with our good friends Tom and Mel!!
We covered a lot of ground in less than 36 hours in the city!!! Chelsea, East Village, Greenwich Village, Midtown, Brooklyn, and Wall St….our feet were sore and we were happy. We took a coupla photos where we got engaged last week in Central Park and scoped out the NY waterfront by the financial district…it looked like a rough day out there, so we’ll be targeting calmer conditions for our passage!
It’s been an amazing weekend and we’re ready to get back at ‘er tomorrow.