Masts Ready To Go Up

I’ve been beavering away steadily these last few days and yesterday I hopped the train into Plymouth to get the shackles I needed to finish rigging the masts. That job’s all done now and I’m just waiting on the yard crane being available to get them stepped. I’m really looking forward to that. It’ll be the last major transformation before the sails go up for the first time.

Here’s a piccy of the masts ready to go.

And the shroud plates shackled with lanyards ready.

The weather has been warm and sunny all week which has helped enormously, in between working on the mast I’ve been making good transport damage and re-painting the upper sides. I’m about half way through now so I hope the weather holds.

We’ve been at Weir Quay nearly a month now and at last I’m beginning to de-stress and to enjoy just being on the boat and by the water. It’s been a long time since I felt so at home. I still have some big challenges to overcome before ‘Gleda’ is a functional sea-worthy sailing vessel and finances are a constant worry, but Gail is back in a few days and I know that together we’ll find a way to get things done and get the real adventure started.

We’re a few days past Springs now so ‘Gleda’ will soon be mud bound for a few weeks again, it was so good to see her properly afloat and with luck the next time will see her out to a mooring.

When Steve Turner visited the other day he took this super photo looking down on ‘Gleda’ from the deck of the yacht he was surveying on the hard. It’s cool to see her from a new perspective. Steve put a few more photos up on his Facebook page HERE along with a mention of Jake Woodnutts Tiki 26 ‘A Roamer’