A lot has gone on in the last couple of weeks with the rebuild, I am going to let the pictures do the talking and not type so much. This page may take a long time to download as it has a lot of pictures, please be patient.

We got the traveler completed. The new traveler car from Catalina Direct worked great.

The completed traveler system. The only miscalculation was ordering 25 feet of line, with the offset cars on the stern set back at the bigger angle (you can see the original holes if you look close), I need 30 feet of line to be able to control the traveler from the steering position. West Marine comes through again and the new line will be there tomorrow.

Next we spent a lot of time working on the inside.

It has been damned hot in Texas, so we ended up with poor man's A/C. It would not have been possible to work inside without the fan, with the fan it was almost pleasant.

David was able to replace the rotted wood on the bulkhead with new wood. Next we moved on to manufacturing and installing the internal stiffening tie downs.

A two inch strip of aluminum served as raw material for the tie down tabs. We needed 9 as the tenth was built into the underside stem fitting we installed a couple of weeks ago.

Once we had the holes drilled and the angle bent to a precise number of degrees ("Does that look good?" "Yeah, sure, works for me!"), the trusty jigsaw cut along the line and another tie down tab was born.

A full set of tie down tabs for the sides. The tabs with the larger holes are for the base of the shrouds, the smaller holes attach to the bulkheads.

The completed tie downs on the starboard side. They have yet to be tensioned. We used stainless steel turnbuckles from Home Depot. The cable is from the original main halyard. It is all secured with stainless steel saddles, again from Home Depot. Those suckers were not cheap! I have spent almost as much at Home Depot for tools and parts as I have at West Marine!

A close up of the tie-down attachment at the starboard aft lower shroud. The tie down tabs worked great.

The Port aft lower tie-down attached to the bulkhead. The Port forward lower tie down is attached to the same bolt on the forward side of the bulkhead.

The Bow tie down tab and the inside stem fitting, minus the tie down cable and turnbuckle.

The new mast step and mast organizer in place, from Catalina Direct.

The top of the mast head with the halyards run, the mast crane installed and the Harken sheaves.

A side view of the new masthead and crane. The forestay and backstay haven't been attached yet.

The base of the mast with the halyards and topping lift run. The block and cleat is for the Spinnaker halyard.

We also finished up the internal out haul with 4 to 1 purchase. We had to get a new boom end cap, as the screws holding the original were frozen in with time. We have used LocTite on all screws to keep that from happening in the future.

We got the mast up, but then we were shot. The work documented on this page actually took 2 sundays to complete. It was hot, we got rained on, and we were exhausted. But, we were glad to get the stick up and have it look like a boat again. Next time, pictures of the new sails, mast tuning, finishing the cross sheeting system, and hopefully pictures from on the water!