The guys at the yard at Hop-O-Nose started their day at 8 am and they got busy right away on getting our mast back on our boat. It’s an interesting process here at this marina with some equipment that doesn’t exactly look OHSA approved. However, the guys know exactly what they are doing and they did a great job getting the mast raised and back on the boat. I don’t have all the pictures of the process because it was just too nerve wracking to watch! I thought for sure our mast was going in the drink more than a few times.

First they lifted the mast with a small crane

This allowed them to get it high enough and moved out in the open so they could get the travel lift close enough to get a couple of straps under the mast and lift it with the travel lift.

Then they used the travel lift to move the mast toward the shore and docks where the boat was. They then floated a section of dock underneath the travel lift and slowly lowered the mast onto the floated dock section.

Then the move this floated dock section around to the other side of our boat and place it right beneath the larger crane

Then they use the crane to lift the mast off the floated dock section and suspend it in mid air and move our boat from one side of the dock to the other so the boat is now directly underneath the larger crane and the mast hanging above the boat. It was at this point that I couldn’t watch any longer and decided that they could finish the job and I could try to occupy myself and hope the mast wasn’t going to end up in the drink.

Well, the mast went in fairly smoothly. Sometimes it’s better not to watch. Mark was able to get all our electronics and gadgets that are connected to the mast all hooked back up. We secured all the rigging at least initially for now. The guys from the marina had done all their work and now it was up to Mark and I to finish the job of tuning the rig, putting the sails back on, putting the mast boot back on to ensure the mast wasn’t going to leak when it rained.

Before we finished our work, it was about lunch time and we decided to take a walk into town and see if we could have some lunch. The Catskills is a nice little town with some interesting buildings.

But one of the interesting things were all the cat statues located along the main street. The origin of the word Catskills translates to Cat Creek. Not sure if there were a lot of cats around here?? But the statues were sure cute.

As we walked into town, we passed by a business that said “Henderson Oil, Propane and Monuments” Now that is an interesting combination of business. They sell cemetery monuments as well as oil and propane. Not sure what these have to do with one another but they seemed to be a thriving business. We stopped in briefly on our way to lunch to ask about propane and could they fill our propane tank on the boat. We use propane for cooking with the stove and oven on the boat. They said sure, so after we ate lunch we walked back to the boat, retrieved our propane tank and walked back into town again to get it filled. The guy fired up the truck that held propane in the parking lot and filled our tank in just minutes. We were about to leave after paying for our propane and he said, “Your not going to walk with that are you?” He offered to give us a ride back to the marina to avoid having to carry the now heavy propane tank. That was super nice, thanks!!

Once we were back at the boat, we finished up all the little jobs of getting the mast and rigging all back to what it should be. We tuned the rig, finished the mast boot and and added the sails and any remaining rigging. By the afternoon, we were exhausted and called it an early night after a nice dinner of homemade chicken chow mien.