September 20, 1991.
Day five saw us heading through the Troy locks and towards Albany, where we knew a good days work awaited us in re-stepping the mast. A job none of us were looking forward to. I was very glad Bill and Sue were with me. We pulled up to Castleton On The Hudson Marina and docked for the night whereupon we immediately all went into the shower and came out to have a cold beer, then another in quick succession before beginning dinner. The owner / operator of the Marina explained to us the workings of the crane there and we decided to wait until the next morning, when he could explain it to us again and we would set about tackling the job.
“The Crane” had surely been there for forty years and consisted of a crane with two pulleys, one for raising and one for lowering, with a few old lines attached. Lots of boats used this method and we set about attaching the lines to the mast and up she went... first a foot or two, then ten and we began to position her to sit flatly into the deck stepped area that secured her. As we did this, it was necessary to slip the lines up the mast and secure her to the pressure points at the front and back of Blue Grace.
To our pleasure, we accomplished this feat in less than three hours and motored Blue Grace out into the water before repositioning her on the docks to secure the shrouds and install the boom and sails, deflate and store the dinghy and head south.
That afternoon, we found ourselves miscalculating the distance to the marinas and with the aid of our trusty spotlight, and lots of shouting and double guessing, found our way into Hidden Harbour Marina, a privately owned marina where the drinks were cheap and the showers were clean.
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