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April 2016

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A Singer 500A, also known as a Rocketeer, is now sitting on my salon table. This machine was manufactured in the fifties, has all metal gears and is well known for being able to sew through pretty much anything. I happened to find one in Tacoma; it is in immaculate condition and was recently serviced. I figure I hit the vintage sewing machine jackpot.

I have a rather lengthy list of sewing projects starting with repairing the rip in our sail bag. This should be easy enough. My sewing notions are will need to be retrieved from the storage unit and I need to get some heavy-duty needles, heavy UV thread and some Sunbrella fabric to patch it with.

The next large task will be re-stitching all the things. Thread rots more quickly than fabric and the stitching is starting to pull out of our dodger. We are going to look into adding some more visibility on the sides of the dodger as well as ventilation. The goal is to repair and re-engineer instead of replacing.

Yesterday I made it to the top of the mast. Here I am 68′ in the air suspended by the main halyard.

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This time I am in a rock climbing harness and the bosun’s chair. I felt pretty good about this trip up the mast. As I stared at the snap shackle attached to my harness, I just continued to remind myself it is designed to hold the weight of our main under gale force winds. Rover was not okay with me being in the air.

Once I reached the top and came face to face with the end of the main halyard attached to the mast, I became a little worried.

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Ryan assured me this was normal. I should note I was also secured to the Genoa halyard.

I was able to get some pictures of the electronics and rigging at the masthead. We will be mounting an additional antenna at the top and we now have a better idea of the logistics involved.  We also discovered some pull strings which needed to be replaced as they were badly frayed.

Here are more pictures of the view from the top.

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