Mariquita Book - mk2

FIXING THE TOP MAST
The heel of the topmast sockets into the top of the mainmast.
It is vacuum sealed so very difficult to dislodge. With chisels
and hammers Matty and Dan tried to split the wood down the
middle to break the seal. It wouldn’t budge and by mid afternoon
they decided on a different method. By fixing two eye bolts into
the wood they were able to attach a crow bar creating a ‘Spanish
windlass’ that sucked out the wood just enough to break the seal.
It’s not unusual for gaff-rigged yachts to lose a topmast. Back in 1911 when the 19-Metres
were first raced they pushed the boats really hard, basically to breaking point. At one
infamous regatta on the Clyde in July 1912, both Norada and Corona lost their main
masts in a nasty squall at the mouth of Rothesay Bay. Nowadays it’s less common but
there have been some recent incidents. The 15-Metre Tuiga had a bad run of luck at Les
Régates Royales. Three years in a row on the same day at the same leeward mark she lost
her topmast. They were out racing the next morning.
Back in the day the crew would work through the night to fix the topmast for the next
day’s racing. In 1911, there were no cranes so they would raise the spinnaker pole really
high, lashing it in place. They would then set up a tackle at the end of the pole as the hoist
point, essentially using a block and tackle to hoist the new topmast up so they could then
drop it in from a great height. The boat might be ready to race the next day, but the same
might not be true of the crew. Not only would they be tired from working all night but
they would also have the incident from the previous day at the back of their minds.
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