Now that the toe rail is in place, we can start working on dozens of smaller projects. We started the day by removing both the main sail and the jib from their furlers. They both need a little bit of “help” from the sail’s loft but we also had to remove them in preparation for taking down the mast.

It was initially not obvious to me that the mast had to come down before the race. The surveyor who checked the boat last year told me that everything looks good and that the rigging would last a long time. He was for the most part correct but when Bob and I removed the boom on Saturday, it became very clear that carefully checking everything before crossing the Pacific ocean is the right thing to do. The boom itself was OK but we found 3 problems that I had previously missed:

• One of the retaining clevis pins was broken and the boom was almost out of its hinge
• The rivets on one of the attachment point of the main sheet were ready to give up
• One of the sheave inside the boom was broken in two – that may explain why the main sail was sometimes a bit hard to winch

I am wondering what we will find when we finally take the mast down – likely around mid-March.

We also installed a permanently-mounted antenna for the satellite phone. We had to drill a hole in the stainless steel arch (not easy), and route the coaxial cable through the tubing. I ordered 35′ of LMR400 and 4′ of LM240 with the TNC connectors that are standard for all the Iridium accessories.I ordered the cables from MPD Digital. The company’s slogan is: “Welcome – If it’s Made in a Communist Country we don’t sell it!“, which is a funny (?) way to claim that they only sell US-made cables. Regardless of their political opinion, the quality was extremely good and the price very reasonable for such a small custom order.

The external helix antenna together with the low loss cable should give us a reliable signal at the nav station. Verdict next week when I bring the phone for a test..

The iridium antenna