We rebuilt the garage, knocked down walls in one of the houses, installed a new bathroom, converted the attic and spruced up the motorhome.
All the while, Ishtar sat on her pontoon in Cardiff bay, gathering dirt and feeling more than a little neglected. I'd been working a fair bit, and Louise had been doing all of her usual night shifts, so we decided to get Ishtar's standing rigging checked.
Good job too. When the Rigger, Andy, came to have a look, he found that one of the spreaders - the bars that help hold the mast up, had broken away completely, and would need to be re-welded. Decision made. We'd change the rigging.
Louise did the vast majority of the work. Firstly, she took Ishtar across to Cardiff Marina on her own, where, helped by Andy, the rigging and mast was removed:
Louise then took Ishtar back to her pontoon berth. My father and I drilled off the broken spreader, and welded it up before refitting it. We made a lovely mess with the mastic designed to stop galvanic corrosion.
A couple of weeks later, Andy had ordered in all the new bottle screws, stainless steel cable and other biits and pieces and once again Louise took the boat to Cardiff Marina where the mast was restepped, and all the shiny new wires and fittings installed.
A lot of work, and a lot of money. Having sailed with a friend who was unlucky enough to have a failure in his rigging, but who was level headed enough to save his mast, it's great piece of mind to know that ours has all been renewed, and should be good for 10 years or more of sailing.
