Catskill, NY (To Unstep the Mast)

[Kyle]From Kingston, we took the afternoon flood further up the Hudson to Catskill. We had originally planned to go to Castleton, where the Boat Club there has a DIY crane you can rent for $75, to unstep our mast. We had stepped Prydwen's mast there when we were southbound in 2003. We liked it a lot. Back then, we were the only two people there that day and it went just fine. {Maryanne: For those not familiar with the term, unstepping the mast is removing it (stepping it is putting it back up), it involves undoing all the wire supports and then finding someplace to store it - we needed to unstep the mast since we were planning to go through the Erie Canal and it has many bridges that are just too low for us to get under with the mast up.}

The sail up the Hudson is lush, green and with plenty of bird sightings

The more I thought about Begonia's beefier mast, the more I realized it would be tricky with just the two of us. The big problem was the roller furling and the fact that the mast has a forward-facing spreader for the jumper stay. In order to keep from bending the furler too far, we needed one person to hold it away from the spreader, at least one to hold the mast and one to operate the crane. We understand that there's usually some helpful soul hanging around who's willing to lend a hand, but what if there's not? Also, unstepping is a little more involved because of the complication of working around the supports on deck that hold the mast when it's down. When Maryanne suggested we fork out the extra dough to have a yard do it for us, or at least with us, I conceded it was probably not such a bad idea.

Catskill, a small town surrounded by woodlands, and already with several other boats here for the same reason we are. Our daily excursions found plenty to enjoy

With Castleton out of the running, our northernmost option in the Hudson, before the bridges started getting too low for our mast, was a marina/boatyard at Catskill. We called Hop-O-Nose Marina (named after the native American village that originally occupied the site of modern-day Catskill) and they said they would be happy to fit us in whenever we got there.

After a day of prep work, we finally had everything ready to go. When we pulled the mast off the deck step, the problems began. It was all fine, but the supports that Mark and I (mostly Mark) had made as a male bonding experiment in Norfolk turned out to be too short. I had allowed space for the spreaders to clear the cabin, but forgot about the diamond stay running from the end of it to the mast. It wanted to rest on the bimini and there was no way to roll the mast far enough to clear it without the other spreader hitting the deck. We needed something taller, but replacing just the aft one angled the mast too close to the water in the front. Thus, we needed a whole new setup and we needed to find it now.

Unstepping the mast was helped by many hands, we were very glad we didn't try to do it alone

We had a little time because they had put the mast on the dock so we could do some more work before stowing it on Begonia's deck. We grabbed a measuring tape and headed to the shed where they keep the old supports left behind by other boats in the past. They have an easy system; if you think you may be coming back, write the year on each support. We were told we could help ourselves to anything dated before 2023.

After some rummaging and measuring, we found a pair of beefy supports that would only need minor modification to adapt to Begonia's deck space. While Maryanne sorted out and tidied up all of the mast's loose lines and stays, I went to work with drill and saw to alter the supports. Once we got them on deck, we started the job replacing our old radome with a new one and snaking the cable through the mast.

We also wanted to replace our forestay – the last remaining of the original three installed back in Western Australia. The other two had broken strands at their swages far too early in their expected service life, which led us to want to replace it out of an abundance of caution at 2 ½ years, rather than the insurance company's recommendation of 8-10.

I inspect the rigging with stabilizing binoculars every time we use the sails. Then, just to be sure, I go up there myself about once a month to give it a closer look and to prod each strand. That's how I found the last one that broke. The actual break was hidden in the swage, but play in the strand revealed it not to be attached to the end under compression.

All the strands at the top of our forestay (where it failed pre-Brent) were bound in a nice, tight bundle. The swage at the bottom, however, is buried deep inside the furler. It isn't visible without partially dismantling the unit. Well, sure enough, once we got the thing off the mast, on the dock and taken apart, we slid the stay out of the furler and found two broken strands. Sonofa...

This failure was hidden from view by the roller furler drum - we were VERY GLAD we checked!

We had the replacement stay ready (we generally carry a spare stay for our longer passages 'just in case'), but the process of sawing the ends of the old one off so we could keep the good fittings took longer than expected. Between that and the radar installation, our hour under the crane had turned into all morning. We were worried the yard guys were going to get impatient with us, but every time they came to check on us, they told us to take all the time we need and then asked us if there was anything they could help with. I wonder what the rate is for the extra time.

When we finally gave them the thumbs-up that we were ready, they returned, picked up the mast off the dock and swung it over the deck supports. Once the supports were taking the mast's weight, they decided they didn't like something. The forward one was taking too much of the load, they said. The mast would have to be moved back and they wanted to add a third support right behind the bow to help spread the load.

With four guys working, they had all of the adjustments and modifications done before we had even had a chance to start for the shed. It reminded me of watching our Panamá Canal line handlers switching everything over before the next lockkeeper had even announced the change of plan. Half an hour later, everything was secure enough for us to return to our slip across the river, where we finished the job by tying every piece of free line aboard to every secure point we could between the mast and boat.

The next day, they came over with the bill. We got charged $7 per foot of mast length for the unstepping, plus nothing for the extra time in the crane slip, nothing for the supports, nothing for any of the little bits and pieces they gave us, like wood, screws and bolts, and nothing for the use of some of their tools. They did get Maryanne for $14 for four nylon tie-down straps with rachets, but only because they were new in the packaging. The rate for our transient slip was $1 per foot per night, which would have been normal in 2003, but is less than half of what everybody else in the area is charging now.

Don't get me wrong. The marina is not particularly nice. They seem to be having a real fastener shortage, where everything is held together with only half as many screws or bolts as it originally had, as if there was a huge black market for them, but every time we pointed out an issue, they sent a guy right over with some new ones to deal with it. They were always really friendly and understanding about it, too.

After we left, Maryanne posted a recommendation for Hop-O-Nose on U-Face, based on our experience, which was shared by the other boats we were with there. This is where the internet really saves time because if you are ever wondering who's out there that is better than you, you don't have to worry because they will tell you.

Firstly, we are some truly awful people for saying such bad, unfair things about Castleton. We didn't. Maryanne pretty much said the same as in the first paragraph. Secondly, any idiot should know that Hop-O-Nose is absolutely terrible at absolutely everything. Any newbie idiot who has wasted their last twenty years doing nothing useful, when they could have been sailing up and down the same stretch of river the whole time, isn't even smart enough to deserve to be here.

Hop-O-Nose dropped a mast in 2019 (they did). Anyone who wasn't too much of an idiot to be a local would have known not to come within a mile of them with their boat. They should have gone to Castleton for a chance to drop their own mast themselves instead. Everyone whose mast didn't get dropped by Hop-O-Nose just got lucky. Perhaps, but our unstepping was competent and done with good cheer. In the end, it's more secure than my setup would have been and they saved our asses in many tiny ways all throughout the day. The others we talked to pretty much echoed the same sentiments. It may be that they don't deserve to be forgiven like Exxon or McDonald's or ... oh ... Brent!, but I think there's a chance that some of the people on the internet may just be complain-ey jerks. They should have a name for that.

Inbetween prep and unstepping the mast, we did get to do a few walk/runs and try out the ice cream store. We found out late in the day that the pizza store was cash only and had to scramble to pay a server by paypal so he could pay cash on our behalf (Oops).