Thank you all for kind words, and in the case of Peter Manning (The Angel of the North West - see his photo) much more than just words.
However, now back to earth.
I spent a frantic week at the boat in Plymouth. Two days to get the rig off the boat and strip it down and prepare for mast lifts (plural), singlehanded again. I hope that my system of numbers, abbreviations, markings, bits of coloured electrical tape, diagrams and notes will allow me to reconstruct it, memory not being what it was.
Monday move the boat under motor to Queen Anne's Battery where All Spars lifted both masts out. They also took out the mast step of the main, the one that had been moving and graunching on the way to the Azores. Then back to Millbay Marina.
On Tuesday I took the sails up to Exeter to Chris Scanes and they went off for laundering on Wendnesay and will be back in a week, after which they will have a 5,000 mile overhaul and repairs and the addition of larger metal eyes in pairs which should reduce or eliminate the chafe on the lashings securing the sail to the battens and keep battens.
All Spars worked on the masts and associated items on Tuesday and Wednesday. The mast step consists of two aluminium alloy parts: a boss reducing to a spigot that goes inside the base of the mast; a square plate under the boss. This assembly is machine screwed onto a similar size plate which is glassed onto the top of the keel. The two parts of the mast step assembly had been held together by four machine screws counter sunk from under the plate up into the base of the boss. Two of these machine screws were loose and one was sheared. There was evidence that it had been re-screwed together a number of times before. It was a bad design and was in the process of failing spectacularly. I was lucky. It is now welded together!
If we were having to lift one mast, it was sensible to lift both of them. This proved to be a good thing as the problems on the foremast were all at the top, where it was only just holding together. That mast now has a new capping plate which now has the Sea Me radar target enhancer mounted on it, this having been taken off the pushpit. On the main mast we now have a new high quality VHF antenna with a bonded cable which will go without any breaks in it to the splitter box which runs the VHF and the AIS. All the electric cables have been replaced with marine grade fully tinned and with soldered ends for all electrical connections. The new VHF antenna includes a windex. The earlier windex has been moved to the foremast, so we have two up there, which means belt and braces. The passive radar reflector, the big white tub, was very decayed and was hanging on by a thread. We now have a new one. Etc, etc.
The two masts were put back in on Thursday afternoon, after which I took the boat back to Millbay and put it to bed, including getting the booms, yards and battens stowed inside the boat. I then left in the early evening and drove the 270 miles to Derbyshire to arrive as usual in the small hours. Shattered again and very much poorer. But the boat will be all the better for it.
Who said BOAT stands for Bring Out Another Thousand! I suspect the bill will be all of that. I said as much to the lad who had been shinning up the masts, and he said: "If you have an enemy, buy him a boat!"
Ah well, On, On! jds