The mast is out, so it was time to look at the problems. We undressed the mast and brought all the rigging home. Its a pain to have to remove the VHF and anchor light wiring to get the rigging off, but has to be done.
The mast had suffered quite a lot from shackles pressing in to it, but nothing serious. We must try to avoid that when we dress it in the spring.
The serving I did a couple of years ago on the flexible wire is holding out well. The only serious chafe was on the peak halyard that had pushed its way down the mast. I hadn't got the screws deep enough into the mast on the new fittings last time, but it is not a serious problem.
Brass screws don't seem to suffer zinc leaching this far above the waves which is good to know.
The mast collar was totally rotten and definitely the cause of the mast moving forwards. It all came off easily, with just one broken screw left in the deck. The deck seems solid with no sign of any movement, so that is a big relief. Making a new collar seems very straight forward and would be a good use of whitebeam I think; it is rock hard and wearing very well on Worm where it is varnolled. Or I could use some iroko we have.
Started looking at servicing the engine. Needs a lot of cleaning and we need to bring a battery back to run the engine to warm the oil up.
Alison found lots of grease squeezed out from around the stern gland. Something is wrong there. Must take it apart and repack it.
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