Elizabeth, initial survey part II

Let's step the mast.  Like most vintage era Moths, the Ventnor has a hollow mast with an internal halyard.  The heel of the mast has a "clothespin" notch which slips over a similar one in the keelson.

The standing rigging is a simple three stay configuration.  The bow stay has retained its Ventnor Boat Works-made pelican hook.  The hook has a home made "keeper" made from a copper hog ring.  The original keeper was made from copper tubing.  Both side shrouds have lost their pelican hooks.  Someone replaced them with screen door quality turnbuckles.  The turnbuckles were missing their bottom eyes.  Fortunately those eyes are the ones with right-hand threads and so I was able to come up with enough bits and pieces to kluge the rig together for the purpose of rigging the boat in my front lawn.

The stay wire is rusty, brittle 1/4" galvanized wire that is full of "meat hooks" and has long since lost its zinc coating.  I'll replace them with 1 x 19, 3/32" stainless steel braid.  Hopefully I'll be able to source a proper sized threaded eye to replace the swagged terminal.  I have a couple of period correct pelican hooks in my hardware collection for the side stays.

At the other end of the mast, the hounds are a scant 21" from the tip!  I wonder how much this mast will bend?  The mast on Bill Boyle's Ventnor has the hounds set at 28" from the tip.  Another difference between supposedly "production" boats.

Before stepping the mast, the tail of the halyard must first be fed through the deck partner.  Note the nice "streamlined" boss that protects the deck at the partner.

How does one retrieve the tail of the halyard from the far reaches under the bow deck?  Why with a "Higgins Stick" of course!

A Higgins Stick is nothing more than a coffee cup holder screwed into a piece of dowel.  Chuck Higgins, a member of the founding generation of Moth Boaters showed me this little trick before he passed away.

The mast stepped.

The sail up for perhaps the first time in many years.  Not a bad looking sail considering it's Egyptian cotton and is as old, if not older, than I am.  Two of the sewn-in battens are broken and will need replacing.  This boat was probably purchased with day sailing in mind and was probably never raced since the sail doesn't have the Circle-M class insignia.  Boats of this era often did not have numbers on the sails.  The identifying numbers were instead painted on the bow deck.

Merv Wescoat's sister worked in the sail loft at VBW.  I wonder if she stitched together this sail?

Rigged up; port side view.

Rigged up; starboard bow.

Rigged up; stern view.

I think that handy, but heavy bronze Herreshoff bow cleat will have to go.

The trigger on that little bronze hook has a bad case of arthritis.

I'll let it "rest" for a few weeks in this penetrating oil bath and see if it loosens up.

 With cold weather closing in I'll probably work on getting that red rudder to fit and then wait for spring.  Hopefully I'll get this boat back on the race course this summer.  In the meantime, I've been supplied with contact information for an elderly previous owner and hope to learn some of the boat's history.  I've been told that the boat was named after his first wife.