Such Great Heights

The tricolor and running
light at the top of our mast

One of the many but little mini upgrades we made to Further this season was changing our tricolor and running light bulbs to LED bulbs. Our normal lights use about 2.5 amps and the LED bulbs use only 0.03 amps. That's a HUGE savings when it comes to self sustaining ourselves! The less power we use, the more we can recharge ourselves with only solar power, one of the ultimate goals we are working towards when we install new/updated instruments/gadgets on the boat.

Unfortunately the bulbs we bought created too much RF interference when on and disrupted our VHF radio and AIS to the point they no longer were sending or receiving signals while we were crossing the lake at the start of our trip. At the time we noticed that something wasn't right but didn't put two and two together until the next day when we were safely in harbor and in our right minds (aka no longer seasick). After some research we also learned this is a common issue. 

Bottom line, we cannot safely sail at night without these lights nor can we be out on the water safely without our VHF and ideally our AIS working! So, in true Hunger Game fashion, I volunteered as tribute to go up the mast to retrieve and then reattach the light at the top. Thankfully this was not my first time in our bosun chair, however, the prior two times I was in the car was to only go up 10 feet so it was never a big deal. But this time would be a bit, no, a lot different. Our mast is 43 feet tall so I'd be dangling about 48 feet over the water level and if something goes wrong there are a lot of things I could hit on my way down. 

We decided to scale the mast on one of our days while in port at Luddington, MI this past weekend and I'm sure we gave the marina and surrounding park quite a show! In total I went up the mast 3 times. The first was to practice how to tie myself off correctly with my primary line that had a block at the top every 5-10 feet to gain confidence. While I did this Brady also got comfortable with the secondary line that was on our mast wench. I was about 12-18 inches from the top, which was as far as I could go with the rigging we set up so I had to try to figure out how to remove the light over my head and without seeing what I was doing. After about 15 minutes of attempting to do this I decided to take some pictures so we could a) figure out how to remove the damn light and b) how to figure out how to get me higher so I could see what I was doing the next time. 

Further looks great from up here!

The second time going up thankfully was smoother than the first. This time we changed the rigging up and switched the halyards I was attached to so I could easily see the top of the mast and what I was doing. This made the job so much easier and I was able to successfully remove the darn light after giving it a couple wacks (funny how sometimes that's the best way to get a job done). Brady then swapped the light bulbs back to our original ones and back up the mast I went for the final time. Thankfully the last time was smoother than the first two times since the wind was starting to pick up and there was a crowd gathering across from us for a wedding and we didn't want our squeaky winch to be a distraction when the love birds said I do. Thankfully I was down and had cracked open a celebratory beer for the soon-to-be newlyweds before the bride or her bridesmaids made their grand entrance. 

Unfortunately this little hiccup now takes us back to the drawing board. The next step is to either figure out a way to stop the interference with the LED bulbs in our light or we have to find and purchase an entire new light. Changing these bulbs or light completely may cost more now but will help us put in the long run. We will keep you updated with our progress to come up with a solution!