Cover off, mast away

Saturday 18th June

The first job for Victoria's lorry now it is back on the road is to collect her mast. It's been supporting her cover all winter but the cover's coming off now so that Victoria can be motored round to Harwich for her annual makeover.
It's only going to be a short trip for the boat so it's not worth the trouble of rigging her and putting all the sails on: it will all need to come down again for the crane-out.

Howard used a rubber dinghy when he fitted the cover but he reckons it can be removed without this aid: our nephew James is on hand to help with this job and it's a test of his gymnastic abilities as you see:

James untying the cover - he managed this bit without getting wet....

Then it's mast onto the trailer - luckily it's fairly short (we're gaff rigged) and it's light. It's hollow in fact - the story goes that back in 1897 her mast was made from the old spinnaker pole of a J-class yacht but I'm not sure how we could prove or disprove that. 

For anyone interested in this kind of trivia, here is what the mast section looks like (ignore the filler piece in the middle):

The steel clad bottom few inches of Victoria's mast were removed a few years ago so when we changed from keep stepped to deck stepped - that change made this lorry transportation lark  possible so don't knock it.

Job done - thanks James, mast ready to go

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