Is something missing here? Reach feels quite naked without her mast. This is the second time we've un-stepped the mast. The first time was to replace rigging in 2007 and this time to re-wire the entire mast after our lightning strike.
Shelter Bay Marina calls in a crane from Colon to pull masts. The set-up was such that we could pull into the boat-well to have the mast yanked and placed in the yard.
Victor took charge of the operation (thank goodness)! Our halyards were already off so we couldn't winch him up, so he tied himself into our bosun's chair and looped himself onto the crane ball for a ride up the mast. He strong-armed the straps around the mast, connected them to the crane ball... and it was then we wondered, how will he get himself back down??
Aha, he next belayed himself down the hook using the rope he was tied to. He made it look easy, but there was a lot of strength involved in this brute-force operation.
We could now finally see where the lightning bolt hit and completely blasted off an antenna, now missing. There is visible electrical damage to neighboring rods and another antenna, as well as in the masthead tricolor circuit board... on down the cables to blow out the VHF... around the (-)DC wiring... etc... etc.