The Mast Comes Down in Castleton

Athens to Castleton-On-Hudson, New York - 18 nautical miles sailed

We were on the clock to get SeaLight's mast off as the weather forecast for tomorrow was solid rain and Dad was schedule to leave the day after that. Today was the day.

We were back on the water by 6:15 am and arrived at the Castleton Boat Club shortly after 10 after a river run dodging floating trees and bumping through several sunken ones. There was nobody at the club yet so Dad and I helped ourselves to the water hose and filled up the tanks and jugs. Ken, one of the members, arrived shortly thereafter and filled SeaLight up with diesel fuel then checked us in. I paid for one self-service mast removal and two nights on a mooring ball then Dad and I got to work.

I went to the scrap pile behind the clubhouse and was happy to find that the mast supports that Mike and I had built in Oswego last fall and left here when we put the mast back up were still here so Dad and I carried those back to the boat and saved ourselves a couple hours of work building new ones. We were hoping there would be other sailboats here today taking down their masts as all the cruisers help each other out, but unfortunately is was just us. I was a little worried about this as last time we had five people helping and everybody seemed to have a job.

In the end, we got it done. It took longer than expected and there were a few tense moments, but we got it. After the mast was down and secured on the boat I needed to build something to protect the aft solar panels from scraping against the walls of locks, which happened on our first Erie Canal transit. My idea was to simply put one long board across the arch that would extend out past the panels and hit the slimy lock walls before they did.

My uncle Don is an expert cabinet maker and millworker. I asked him once how precise you needed to be with measuring when building the sorts of things he builds. He told me within thirty-secondths of an inch. My level of precision when woodworking is to the nearest inch or so. This is why I did not become a cabinet maker.

I found two boards in the scrap pile that were already bolted together but a bit short so all I had to do was remove the bolt, redrill a new hole, refasten it, then shove the board into the space and mark where I needed to make slots in it so it would simply drop into the aluminum supports that it sat on. This would have taken uncle Don ten minutes. I struggled for an hour and a half. But in the end, it was a magnificent piece of wooden butchery. Uncle Don would be proud...it wasn't his boat.

We gave SeaLight a pump-out from the handy machine on the dock then motored across the river and picked up a mooring ball. We were exhausted from the day's work but managed to put together a pretty decent shrimp pasta, then had a long call with Ana. She's rapidly readjusted to regular life on land and admitted our incredible sailboat journey already feels like a dream from long ago.