Well today was a very exciting day indeed!  We had the mast pulled out of the boat so we could replace the rigging and do some maintenance on it without having to climb to the top.  A few days ago we sprayed everything with penetrating oil and made sure the fittings would spin, removed the boom, and arranged all of the lines so they would be easy to pull out.  We got to the boat early today so we could do some final prep before the crane truck arrived (the more we do, the quicker it goes and the less we have to pay the professionals!).

Once the truck was in place, Jason and I worked on removing the rest of the rigging while Kyle climbed up the mast to attach the strap to it. The mast flexes quite a bit without all of the rigging on it.

The actual pulling of the mast was more simple than I thought it would be.  Once the crane put pressure on it it just slid right up through the hole in the deck!

Overall, I may be a pessimist, but I expected something to go wrong.  There weren’t any stuck fasteners and no previous owner weirdness.  Stay tuned for Part II to see what we end up doing with this giant chunk of aluminum dangling precariously over our boat!