New rigging and then 'SNAP'

 




'Woohoo', the rigging is replaced by the Guru's Mal and Pete from Port Douglas.  Then Fi and I wander up to the club bar for a well earned beer.  Not more than an hour passed and as we returned to the boat and I see this boomkin stay dangling in the water.  Wait, that's not right??


Yikes!!!  One of our chainplates has broken, which is very bad.  But also very good in the it happened whilst alongside at the marina and not under way which could have resulted in losing the mast.

So after calming down from escaping a near disaster we work out whether to buy new chainplates from Bud (former Westail GM and now supplier of parts) and get them shipped to Cairns from the USA.  Or get them made locally.  After chatting to a few people we ordered them from Bud and they were here the following week.



"Westsail 32" you say, "the chainplates are external so easy to get to".  Sure the plates are easy, you can see them but what about the bolts and nuts on the inside??  Most we OK but the top boat of each plate was high up in the bulwark in a space just a bit smaller than my hand can fit. So some creative spanner work was required and also the enlisting of my brother to help.


Then there was the cap shroud plates...  Of course they lined up with a bulhead so were glassed in.  Now I can assure you that taking to your boat with a saber saw does not fell right but it had to be done to get access.

Quite the mess






The new boomkin plates were a little bigger




We had our new 2 speed self-tailiong winches for the genoa for awhile now so thought while I was in 'boat work' mode I'd install those too.






Location: 42/48 Tingira St, Cairns City QLD 4870, Australia

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