The pictures here are of the mast and boom after the mast was lowered. The reasons for taking the mast down are covered in main mast rebuild 2009 and the compression post repair.

When we took the main mast down at the South Texas Yacht Service, we took off the standing rigging, and the spreaders. We left on the roller furler, and put the mast on top of my Suburban, and hauled it over to Gulf Coast Trawl Doors. This was located just across from the West Marine Store in League City. The location was very convenient, and the price was right. I was able to store the main mast, mizzen mast, and both booms there for $50.00 a month.

Initially, the mast had all of the hardware, roller furling, running rigging and wiring in it, but I eventually took it all off. I labeled everything and stored all of the parts in my shop. The effort to label everything was well worth it when it came to putting the mast back together. I learned that lesson with the 2001 mast rebuild projects. You know the drill, no use putting labels on, I'll remember where it all goes. Yeah - Right!! The main mast on DREAM AWAY is two sections held together with a sleeve. The joint is just below the spreaders.

As you can see from the pictures, the mast and attached hardware were in bad need of some kind of coating. The original plan was to have the mast and all of the parts powder coated. That is why I have all of the pictures with the hardware next to a yard stick. Powder coating goes by the size and area of the parts. The powder coating is pretty expensive, but it does last a long time. In the end I decided not to do it. The cost of the coating plus having to rent a special trailer to get the extrusions up into Houston and back were just too much. As noted in the main mast rebuild, 2009, I decided to go the very inexpensive way, and used Krylon spray paint.