The Mast is Off

We left home Saturday morning and mostly motored to the Rhode River on the western shore. On Sunday we motored 10 miles in light winds to Annapolis and picked up a mooring in the mooring field. We took the jib down, and George disconnected the mainsail cars—they connect the mainsail to the mast—as well as the reef lines. When all of that was done we put the dinghy in the water and dinghied the short distance to shore. The crowd in Annapolis was huge and it really freaked George out. We have avoided any and all crowds for months now and George had no desire to be in the midst of one, even though almost everyone was wearing a mask. We detoured to some side streets that we knew from visiting Pam when she attended St. John’s College and, after taking a brief walk, dinghied back to Breeze On. Numerous boats came into and out of the harbor all afternoon and into the evening. Their wakes churned up quite a chop in the harbor which didn’t calm down until bedtime.

This morning we dropped the mooring lines and motored over to Bert Jabin’s Yacht Yard where the staff from M Yacht Services worked all morning getting Breeze On ready to have the mast removed. While they were working George and I went for a short walk and ended up observing from a distance while we sat in a lovely park. The turnbuckles at the bottom of the shrouds (side stays) were frozen and they had some difficulty removing them. Steve, the boss, told us it is unusual for a boat as young as Breeze On to have that problem. Once everything was finally loosened they used the crane to pull one staff member up the mast to put a strap around the mast. He then came down a rope that was attached to the crane. The crane then lifted the mast and off it went. George and I got back on Breeze On and we motored our mast-less boat seven miles up the Severn River where we will spend a few days until they are ready to put everything back together.