We love when we get to reuse services from awesome people when we have the chance! It doesn’t happen that often because we are always traveling to different places, but recently we got to meet up with an amazing rigger we had used in the past.
Let’s backtrack to the first time we met Jason Pinko--
Five years ago, we were sailing on The Lazy Gecko, and pulled into a Marina. While we were there, we had gotten a halyard stuck. Jeremiah tried to get it out but it wasn’t working so we decided it needed a professional. We did some research and contacted this guy, Jason Pinko. Jason is an amazing rigger and he is also the rigging instructor at a school called Chapman school of seamanship in Florida.
What is rigging exactly? There are 2 kinds-- standing rigging and running rigging. Standing rigging supports the mast with fixed lines and wires that you see going up the mast to reinforce spars against the wind. Running rigging, are the moveable parts that you pull-- the halyards and sheets that adjust the position and shape of the sails.
So, we had Jason come out and go up the mast and fix that on the Lazy Gecko.
Fast-forward five years later, we came into the same Marina after sailing down from Charleston. Jeremiah went out to inspect all the rigging and noticed that our Genoa halyard was broken. The Genoa Halyard goes from the back, through the boat, into the mast and all the way up. It raises and lowers the Genoa so it basically gets pulled up and stays there. So, when he went out to inspect it, the halyard was at the bottom of the mast, loose. It seemed to have broken off the top and gone into the mast. Sometimes hallyards run on the outside of the mast and there's a block (pulley) up higher. It goes up, goes to the block, but on boats like ours, it goes inside the mast. That creates a problem when it breaks because it goes into the mast. So now you have to rerun a new line into the mast and all the way through. Since it was that type of situation, we decided to call Jason.
We decided, if we're going to get this fixed, we might as well do all of the headsail halyards. We have 3 total-- the screecher halyard, the genoa halyard ((the one that broke)), and we have a Spinnaker halyard. The screecher is the one that holds the white sail up in the front, the genoa holds the red sail up, and the Spinnaker one is so we can fly a Spinnaker if needed.
Of course we wanted to call Jason Pinko because he did a great job the last time. We were thrilled that he was still working! He's one of the best riggers in Florida and we were so excited he was able to help us again. He is located near Ormond beach area-- the East side of Northern Florida.
He has so much experience--he was in the coast guard and this is all he does so you know he’s a pro. Jason came out, ran the lines, and was able to go up and take a string with a bunch of nuts on it and drop the string down into the mast. We stayed at the bottom and fished those out. So we reran it, then tied a new halyard on and pulled it back up.
While he was here we asked him to do an inspection on the rig. Every year or so, you want to have a professional come out and inspect your rig. That person will go up the mast and look at the entire thing-- the standing rigging, all the running rigging, etc. Then they'll give you a printed out report, similar to a house inspection.
But with Jason, he didn't need to give us a written report this time. Why not? He does something even better!!
The cool thing about Jason is he lets us film everything, and he also wears a GoPro while he's doing it, so we can watch the video afterwards. Then we can review it as many times as we want, we can do the fixes that Jason says we definitely need but we can also do some of the other fixes that we notice if we want! Also, we can put little clips up on our social media and our website!
Now that he's replaced those three halyards, we'll have him back a second time after fully reviewing all of the video footage so he can do all of the maintenance we agreed on. How cool?
He is awesome and we love this video option he has. His website is http://www.argonautrigging.com/ if you want to check it out.
We are so excited that we get to use some of the content on future Lazy Gecko Episodes on YouTube and Vimeo. Especially cool is that as our patrons, you guys get to watch this exclusive video on our servers with more! You’ll be able to see him fix one of the hallyards and go up the mast. That Exclusive Content is available now on lazygeckos.net.
We can’t wait to share this behind-the-scenes video with you!!
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