Hello everyone! It's your favorite blog post writer! Me! Today, you will read about my daring experience climbing to the top of the mast to fix the broken wind indicator. (That I totally didn't break going under a bridge a wee bit to short for us.)
Now, standing from the nice, safe, stable boat, one could have some pretty bold words. For example. “Climbing to the top of that mast will be a sinch.” I'll come back to this statement explaining how I was wrong.
So I strap myself in to the bosun's chair. (If you are unfamiliar with one it's what Donald Duck sat in when he was painting his boat.) Now I started to be hoisted. As I reach around 40ft up I was begining to have second thoughts about my boastful words. None the less, I reached the top.
The wind indicator (that tells us the direction of the wind.) was about 3inchs out of my reach. Since I was lifted up as far as I could be lifted I had to tie a line around the two shrouds to create a makeshift step. Never in my life did I need as much courage to stand up. For when I stood up I came out of my chair. Not only was the wind indicator to high for me. It was also to far out. I had to tie a line around my chest then the mast, so I could lean out far enough to reach this thing. I was REALLY regretting those words now. After some fighting with it I was able to get it off and send it down for reparis.
After 5 or so minutes it was hauled back up to me. Kinda good as new! So I bolted it back to its rightful place. I was then dropped like a useless stone all the way to the bottom of the boat. So ends the great mast story. The moral of the story is. Buy a shorter boat.
Here is the view I had at the top of the mast! I did my best to edit out the fear of heights for you guys!