waiter, I'll take some ketchup with those silicone bronze screws

Cold grey and rainy today.  What a surprise!  But it will be at least warm enough in the garage tomorrow to put the rigging back on the mast (while I ignore the endless hours of pregame shows).  I got the hardware out of the equipment closet just to make sure I have everything I need..

Above are the silicon bronze screws, no. 8, from the short piece of track on the main mast.  (I shot that close up with the microscope mode on the new camera and was very happy with the results.)  They were   dirty with bits of silicone rubber sealer that I use to bed all the screws on the boat plus a nice layer of patina from the salt spray and rain.  To clean them up I put them in a bag with some ketchup.  By tomorrow morning they should be nice and shiny, looking like new.

I thought of cleaning the other hardware with ketchup, but if I did the track, then I would want to do the gooseneck too.  And what about the cleats?  That sounded like it was getting too complicated, so I'll stick with just clean screws now.  They will all have a nice patina by June anyway.

Above are the stays, the wire bow stay and the amsteel (synthetic line with virtually no stretch) side stays.  The advantage, in my opinion, of using amsteel is that it is easier on the hands and easier to rig.  A couple of simple eyes can be rigged in either end in a matter of seconds, no need for the swage that you see on the wire stay.  I wish I could use amsteel for the bow stay, but to do that I would need (I'm told) soft hanks for the jib but I haven't figured that out yet.

The rigging - there are the lazy jacks and halyards - are ready to go but I'll probably leave them in the bag until I get a nice warm day to roll Spartina out and set up her masts.  Hopefully that is not too far away.

steve