The one little line “Clean The Green” on our list actually had so many components. There was the washing of all the running rigging, the scrubbing of all the fiberglass and teak, and the cleaning of the mast and spreaders. This last one is a task that requires a trip up the mast, and for that reason, hasn’t happened on Yohelah for 6 years.
The last time our mast and spreaders were cleaned was when Brittney went aloft before she had her first child. He’s now nearly 5, and his little brother will be 3 this year. I didn’t expect when I asked about cleaning this year that Brittney would be interested, but she was quite sure she was up to the task.
Our mast is somewhere between 60 and 70′ high. Really, I should know the exact height (and Rob likely does), and will measure next time we pull it down for new rigging. We just have a shared belief that if we have to know within a few feet, we just don’t need to be going under that bridge.
Brittney was in our Brion Toss harness with two halyards tied on and shackled. Rob was tending the spare halyard in the cockpit on a winch, and I hoisted her up using the power of the anchor windlass. She went all the way to the top with a bottle of cleaner and roll of paper towels. She cleaned from top to bottom, stopping at the spreaders to go out to the end of each and clean the bottom all the way out to the shrouds.
Once she was done, and about to land on the deck, she asked “Can I go up again?”. She wanted another trip up to take some pix with her iPhone, so back up she went.
Thanks Brittney for helping with the hardest part of my Clean The Green list item. The mast looks beautiful, thanks to you!
