Up the creek...errrr, mast

The view from our bunk - one of my favorite spots for reading, dreaming and watching the clouds - the 65' mast. Probably the tallest in the marina and possibly the most slender and possibly the most difficult to get a sail up because of the running backs. We either have to pull the sail up fast and trust we miss the running backs or there is a lot of yelling and adjusting. The person on the helm has to be accurate into the wind. Sunday the sail went up like gangbusters - Robert had put Sailkote on the track and we had a new crew on board that was not exactly king kong, but he made it effortless. Then we tried out the furler for the first time. It stuck 1/3 the way out as we were heading down the Estuary. Another new crew went up the mast - Robert's 5/1 climber zooms him up and we see people taking pictures from the tour boat, cruise boats, dinghys. What the hell? We were so focussed on fixing the problem that we didn't realize we were putting on a show. A large boat going down the Estuary, sails out, sort of, people at the helm, and someone up the mast.
Jeff and I put Robert up the mast to set the sail cradle a few days before and we were astonished at how easy it was to run Robert up. But that was in the slip. Young John was up the the mast with the boat underway, trying to fix the jammed furler with an audience. Not possible. After my phone call to the rigger, who called Robert back, saying, "I understand the sky is falling" (A little sexism, there?) he will repair his work in the morning. In the meantime, Robert went up 2x and diagnose the problem and took photos of our deck with all the projects spread around. The sail cradle did work, sort of, but when we tried to douse the main - it was stuck, too. No one panicked as we could send young John all the way up - beyond the jib (fractional rig, not easy to get to the top) and get the main unstuck. But wait. We couldn't get the jib unstuck, but did manage to furl it back. All of a sudden the main dropped, the side of the cradle failed and there was a bemused silence from all the new crew. Robert and I didn't say anything and started flaking the main. Ok. The boat is intimidating to some, but these new crew knew what they were doing and pitched in and kept talking about going up the mast again. Enough already. We had fresh peach smoothies from Dave's ice cream after the jungle gym and sat around in the slip talking sailing stories. Not a bad day at all.