Tallship Soren Larsen - Refit Mast Derig

Soren Larsen Charlestown Refit

Main Mast gets de-rigged.

25th Sept to 1 Oct - Cornwall.
Heavy rain and stiff south easterlies kept us in Fowey Harbour for a coupe of days but on Tues 25th we motored the couple of hours around to the entrance of Charlestown harbour. This ancient little china clay port is home to Squaresail UK Shipyard, owned by Tony's brother Robin and is to be our base for the ship's month long refit. The Cornish pilot boarded us just off the entrance. "Bet you've 'ad this ship inter sum small ports Cap'n? Well they'll have been bigger than this one!" he said cheerfully.

Word of our arrival must have got around as a sizeable crowd of locals had gathered on the sea wall to see us negociate the entrance. Whether they were instinctively drawn to the scene by an inherited Cornish interest in the combination of rocks, surf and a square rigger I couldn't say. The entrance channel zig zags sharply to the right then left with the turn the exact length of the hull.
Tony stood on the steering box, one foot on the helm and Martin drilled us on the foredeck as where to stand by fenders and wharps. Had either been here before? "No, said Big M, but I've seen an aerial postcard and there was more information on that than on the chart". Fine then. Seeing Martin and the Old Man shoe horn Soren out of the lock at St Katherine's in London was impressive enough but this was something else. The crew scuttled across the deck with tyres from starboard to port and back again but we barely needed a fender. "Nice pilot," shrugged Tony modestly..

The weather closed in again and the first day of refit was spent de-rigging the main mast in constant rain. The next couple of days were kinder as Dan supervised sending down the topmast in the traditional manner and a large shore crane lifted clear the main mast and shrouds.
Peter has started pulling apart the main engine - drawing pistons and checking bottom end bearings. The aft table is out of the saloon has been replaced by cylinder heads, crank case doors and No.3 piston.
The heavy awnings were dragged up from the bottom of the sail locker and Ben and Rob have constructed a timber frame to box in the whole aft half of the ship. Tony has also decided to remove the entire windlass from the foredeck in order to replace the anchor chain hawse pipes and make a new bedding plate for it.

The crew have got a lot done this first week, but taking the ship apart is a lot quicker than putting it back together again. The clock is now ticking...


A narrow entrance fine to port.		Inside channel, negociate chicane.

Day one- Main Boom off		Wet and rainy

Not much aloft to hold on to, Dan and Nick unhook tiopmast shrouds		Day Two: Top mast comes to deck

Yellow crane lifts out the main mast		Mast landed ashore

.... and layed out on the quay

Horizonal lift - up and away		Nick on a tricing line

Landing mast safely on the road		Dan, Eric and Nick - master de-riggers.