A mast is expensive, so I thought you folks might be interested in how much this baby accounted for. Well the mast was falsely cut and was actually supposed to go on a brand new boat. So it has never seen the water but you can not officially purchase it. Cash 3000. The rigging (cables) itself came in at somewhere around 1500 (but with taxes and official bill). Then there was some labor costs and the used boom. It altogether was roughly 6000. Not too much for a brand new entire mast setup but still 1.5x the price of the entire boat 😀
When we bought the boat we went for a low price for several reasons. Stuff always breaks and you want some money to be there to pay for expensive repairs (like masts :D). And we were kind of sure that we will wreck our first boat. It’s like your first camping car should be a 30 year old VW T3 right? You get the point. Now we have a well restored VW T3 with a kick-ass rig 😀 Gotten off track here.
Then there was some money from our AriBnb venture and now there is a special story on how we financed the mast.
Oscar, Mort and Martin. Those are three friends of ours from the yacht club WSW in Berlin. When they heard of our disaster they (without us knowing) organized a crowd funding for us within the club, to assist us coming up with some money. At first we were a little ashamed but it was already going on and hey… why not. So let’s just put it this way: The people at the club were generous. Thanks a lot to everybody from the WSW (and associated) who donated for the new mast. It helped A LOT and made decisions much easier.
Whilst thriving energy from our new mast towering above us we were left with a bunch of jobs we had to carry out. Let’s do this as a list, cause stuff like this is just lists for us as well. You may skip this chapter, but if you wanna have that stressful feeling “fuck they are not nearly done” … please be our guest:
- Getting the the ropes inside the mast organized so the leave on the side where they are supposed to
- Cutting of the old steel mast foot, to make space for the ropes to go and not rub against shit
- Waterproof installing of the new mast cables, checking mast lights
- Installing topping lift, boom vang and gooseneck
- Get the sliders for the main working – in boom and mast
- Attaching the sliders to the main
- Figuring out if the old main can work
- Figuring out why the AIS is not working and then installing it in the right place and learning it was never broken …
- Fixing the fucking impeller pump that starts leaking two days before we want to leave
- Attaching all kinds of cleats and fittings to the new mast and boom
- And Bennis absolute king job: trimming the mast once and for all (he did that already en route)
It was not only work. We had good times in Emden too. We spend a couple of days together with Jan – who lives up there. He gave us his fancy car not only on our search for the new mast, but also to transport the boom. Let us use his place for showering, laundry took us to parties and was a regular visitor. Thanks a lot Jan and Sabrina – that made a difference!
Then there is Michael. A sailor himself being in the same shipyard because of engine problems. His 55 feet Jongert is another kind of boat. That’s like comparing our VW T3 Bus to a full blown motor home. A historic and beautiful one though (I hope we have a photo). We spend some good nights over in his LIVING ROOM …. yes. He was the man who did the amazing drone shots of Barfuß and maybe he joins us again for some buddy boating in the next couple of weeks. He is on his way with a Norwegian forest cat and his Irish setter dog – single handed. Farewell!
https://segeln-leben-mit-irish-setter-waldkatze.com/
And then it was time to leave. See episode 30.