Anchor Light, Shrouds and Chainplates

Sarah needed an anchor light so I installed one. Here it is.

I guess this is the actual size, and I believe it throws out 1 million candles. The biggest pain was fishing out the wire up at the top of the mast. Took about an hour with Lee's forceps (a retired veterinarian) and a bent steel wire. 

 While the mast was down I had the standing rigging checked. Turns out you only need three things to do a basic check; Eyes, a Magnet and a Knife.  Look for rusty spots, scrape away the rust and you might find a crack. Use the magnet to see if it's attracted to the wire, older wires (early 80s) were not made with 316 stainless. Turns out Sarah had the original upper shrouds, therefore the magnet was all over them.

If you look close at the picture above you can see the cracks to the left of the split in the white plastic cover. Now, these have lasted 30 years so I am not sure if they actually needed a replacement... 

but I went with the rigger's recommendations and had two new cap shrouds made up by Rigging Solutions in North Dartmouth (still not sure how much I'm paying for them).

While the mast was down, Allyson and I took a couple days and removed all the deck chainplates, replaced every nut and screw and rebed them. Paul, the boatyard Sensei, suggested using butyl rubber tape around the border of the chainplate and put caulking in the center. When you tighten down the bolts the butyl tape will spread out and push the sealant down into the bolt holes. Then you just rip off the tape that squeezed out leaving no caulking disaster to clean up with acetone. We bought the butyl tape a Glaser Glass in New Bedford for $8.50 a roll.