Scott kept saying I'd be sent up the mast. He's been talking about this radar mount since before the boat show in January. So, I suppose it was bound to happen. We couldn't have planned it for a better day. Spring has been slow coming in Seattle this year. The dreary cold seemed to have lasted longer than usual. But today was perfect, probably 70 degrees, little wind, and sunshine.
But before today, I have to admit I had put NO thought into what it meant to "go up the mast." This lack of attention has probably silently driven Scott crazy. So, after class today, I go to the boat and ask how this works, exactly. I inspect the radar mount, and take a look at these rivet things I need to attach. We'd stopped at Home Depot earlier today to buy the rivet gun, but even then I hadn't looked at it. I don't have a clue how a rivet works.
Luckily, there was a lot of commotion at the marina this morning. A new house boat was moving in and it was a laborious morning for its owner and the marina manager to get it into place. Since everyone was out and about, I asked my former neighbor, Jack, how a rivet gun works. Jack is one of those salty fellas who's been around boats for decades, but not so many decades that he isn't up to date on stuff. Every marina needs a Jack.
Jack kindly comes to our boat and explains the riveter in his way that makes it all understandable. Scott and I then went to lunch and when we returned found another riveter (Jack's) laying in the cockpit. The longer handles of his would be easier for me to get leverage on while swinging from a rope. He easily foresaw the difficulties I'd be having.
We also enlist the help of Scott's "most trusted rope handler friend," Dave, to make sure my body stays at the correct elevation. Then we start hooking things to me. First I step into Scott's old rock climbing harness, then he ties Halyard 1 to me with a nifty double figure eight knot. Halyard 2 gets attached to my harness with a carabiner. Then I get a webbing to haul up with me to secure around the mast above the spreaders, and then to myself. Dave gets Halyard 2 and some other belaying rock climbing gear as the safety guy. Scott takes the Halyard 1 and starts winching me up, up, up. I don't know what to do on the way up. Hang on? Help by trying to climb? I end up just getting a feel for the balance of the thing.
I get to the height I'm supposed to be (about 30 feet up) and call down for Scott to stop winching. He ties his end off, Dave keep holding his halyard and I hug the mast and shake in my shoes. I take an uneasy look around. I can see the Fremont Bridge, Mount Rainier, some building of downtown, and most of the boats on the lake. After a few breaths I start my first task, attaching myself to the mast. This is when I realize that I'll need to let go of the mast so I can use my hands. What happened to one hand for the boat? The webbing is wrapped around the mast and carabinered to my harness. The harness is getting pretty full of stuff attached to it now.
Scott sends up a bucket with one of the spare halyards with everything I may need in it. A drill, drill bits, the riveter, the rivets, something to drink, a pencil, my camera, and some tape. The drill and Jack's rivet gun have small rope tied to them so if I drop them they don't go crashing down to the people holding me up.
Then I need to carabiner the bucket to my mesh and send the halyard down again. This again proves to me that I'm rather freaked out up here. But I get it, then down goes the halyard to now hoist the radar mount so I can pattern where to drill holes.
Again, I take a look around. I try leaning back and propping myself against the mast for leverage. But, except for the meshing holding me close to the mast, I'm just a long pendulum up here, with the top of the mast about 20 feet still above my head. But, I start getting comfortable just as the radar mount makes it to my reach.
From below Scott eyeballs the alignment and I dig for the pencil in the bucket. With all the other crap in there, it isn't easy to find. I mark the first drill hole then send the radar mount back down to get disassembled so I only have to attach one small (light) piece at a time. I untangle the rope holding the drill and try my first real life use-it-on-the-boat bowline. I get confused. Scott has been drilling me on this damn knot for weeks. I make a hole, I have a rabbit, and a tree, but I also have a mast that I need to make a part of the equation. In the process I start to realize the impact fear can have on something that has become routine and you CAN do with your eyes closed. I went braindead about the bowline. After a few tries, I have the drill attached to the mast. I send a secret "thank you" down to Scott for making me tie the stupid knot so many hundred times in our living room. I begin drilling the hard aluminum. I start to notice my left leg go numb.
It is slow going. I have difficulty tapping the hole because I have no leverage. I try maneuvering my legs to hold me still, but I now have to manually put my numb left leg where I want it with my arms, and, of course, it won't stay there. The drill wants to walk across the mast instead of dig into it. But I am determined, and eventually a hole begins. Then I drill and drill and drill, holding the drill in my left hand and pulling myself into the mast with the right arm. When my left arm gets sore, I switch. Then I switch back. I hate being a wimp on a boat. It is very inconvenient.
Finally the first of 12 holes is drilled. I take the small piece of the radar mount and tape it in place, making things much easier than if I had been just trying to hold it. I untangle the riveter, put the rivet in it, put it in the hole I just drilled, and... nothing. There is no tension on the riveter at all. I can very easily open and close it. I try a different angle, but, since there is now no feeling at all in my leg, it keeps bumping into the spreaders and pushing me around, making holding myself in one spot even more difficult.
Finally, I give up. Jack even dropped off two spare rivets so I could practice using them while on my feet on the boat. I know how it is supposed to work. It just isn't. I reattach the bucket to a halyard and it gets lowered down, followed by me.
Once I hit the boat, my leg starts to wake up and send spikes through it. But down here the riveter works fine. So, up I go again. This time, when the bucket comes up, it had only the necessities for the exact next step and nothing more. I get back into place, reattach my webbing, get the riveter sent up, tie it to the mast, and try again. This time I have tension. Two squeezes on the thing and I have found success with the first rivet. Yay. But now I need to drill more holes. Down goes the riveter, up comes the drill.
I didn't want my legs to go numb again, so I try laying back in the harness, and that helps tremendously. I get halfway through the next hole and need to lower the bucket and get another battery sent up. Then, with a fresh battery, I get two more holes drilled, for a total of three. The riveting goes rather well, too. I start to get the hang of the balance of hanging by the halyards and use my body for leverage in any way possible.
By this time I am wearing out, though. Drilling the holes was pretty hard work for a wimp like me, and I knew I'd need a break before doing any more. And the drill seemed pretty hot and it seemed like a good idea to give it a little longer break, too. I didn't know that after I went down I wouldn't get hauled up again. Apparently winching me up wasn't such an easy task either.
But three rivets in didn't seem like too bad of progress, especially when I didn't know what a rivet was just a few hours earlier. Maiden voyage up the mast complete.
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