Now it is time to get the show on the road and get this old girl sailing.  We started on the mizzen mast first, because it has the most stuff on it.  With antennas, wind generator, radar, and lights.  The mizzen has gotten new rigging and a L.P. Paint job.  For the rigging we normally would have gone to a bigger size wire for increased strength.  However, we were able to get some of the last Dyform wire that is up to 30% stronger than its 1 x 19 wire cousin that is on most boats.  With this increase in strength we can keep the same size wire and fittings.  The advantage of this is to keep weight aloft down and keep the windage down.  These two items can bring your mast down when the wind is piping up.  I have read that for every 1 pound of weight put aloft a boat looses 7 pounds off here ballast and ballast is what keeps the keel in the water where it belongs.  

In addition to the mast needing work like internal halyards, new sheaves, and conduit for the wiring the mast step was in disarray.  These are deck stepped masts and with an offset compression post.  Islander used an angle of aluminium to transfer the load to the offset compression post.  We and other owners don't like this way and have found great results by having a welder make a direct post to the keel step.  3/16 inch walled stainless steel is what we used and it only takes up a bit more room.  Also the deck between the mast step and compression post had suffered from many years of water saturation.  In this step we cut out the area of deck around the mast step and laid in layer after layer of fiberglass.  Although we have only flown the mizzen stay sail I am sure that this was a huge fix in the total picture of the rig.

More to come when we get going on the main mast and rigging.