So, you can imagine that this was quite a sight traveling from Gardena to Sacramento!!!  A 60' "pole dolly" pulled by an Astro Van!!!  Even though I have a class 1 dirver's license I thought I was going to have a heart attack there was so much adrenalin pumping in me when we pulled out of Moger's yard at 5am Monday morning on the first of the year!!!

David Caissie followed me from the 110 freeway to the 105 to the 405, and I was off on my own once I crossed the Ventura freeway headed for the 5.  I pretty well knew which truck stops to use so as to clear the turning radius of the thing.  The most jittery times were when I was going past freeway on ramps knowing that the oncoming cars would have a hard time seeing a 60' mast 2 feet off the ground!!!

We put clearance lights all along the mast, and a cross piece with brake lights and turn signals.  So there were three of each on the rig: the Astro van, the "dolly" and at the tail end.  I couldn't believe it when I had to turn in to the building at the end of the trip.  The door open directly on to a street that sees 30,000 cars a day drive by in one direction.  I had to make a sweeping turn across

four lanes of traffic to make the door.  To my amazement I had the street to myself for about 30 seconds, and voila!!  We are home!  10 hours at 55 mph with two stops for gas!

Then, as you can see from the next series of photos the challenge is to get the thing suspended from the rafters because we've got a business to run in the building: we sell nes and used scooters, renovate cars, motorcycles, scooters and old marine engines.  (More on that at another time)

Using the trailer for a 12' sharpie that I had stripped and converted to haul a motorcycle a couple of years earlier I rigged up a "dolly" for the mast.

All of this got put together in Moger's yard.  It took about 8 hours for two of us to do it.  I didn't take a break to photograph any of that aspect; so these photos are all after the arrival in Sacramento.

So begins the saga of the mast and boom I salvaged from PCC # ( Neil Atwood can tell us) when she was cut up in Moger Yacht Transport yard in Gardena.  We were able to save many original fittings, the engine, mast, and boom.  The lead ballast went to the scrap yard to pay back rent.  Once the mast was removed however, I started paying rent to keep it in the yard!!!

After 3 years of storage in Moger's yard my income not being immune from the impact of  the downturn in the economy (thak you Milton Friedman, Alan Greenspan, and you greedy banksters!!) I needed to get this thing someplace where I was already paying a sum of dough to store things!  Moger didn't have room on his truck to take it to my warehouse in Loomis when he transported BANANAS and three K-38 masts; so the PCC mast needed its own conveyance.

I rigged up a platform from an old tow bar I had used in 1971 to tow my Alfa Giulietta from San Diego to Bakersfield after I finished graduate school.  ( contrary to everyone's opinion I don't "hoard" things.  I just have a lot of stuff that might come in handy some day.  Just like this tow bar is helping out for this project!!)

So, the PCC mast is now in safe in "storage" awaiting any PCC owner unfortunate enough to need it.  When I ask for $6000 to compensate me for the thing I hope that this series of photos and description of what it took to save, transport, and stow away this asset will help explain the cost in storage, time, expense, and effort.  Of course one could always have a new mast built for about 7 or 8 times that price!!

Once the plastic envelope was removed it was time to hoist the mast into the rafters for storage.  A pathetic block and tackle using snap shackles and an old jib halyard did the trick.  We hoisted it as far as we could, and then tied it off for the the lift needed to get it as close to the beans and out of the way as possible.  this would prove to be a challenge because my ladder didn't reach high enough to rig our tackle well above the mast.  Another means had to be conceived.

Once the mast was stripped of its traveling gear I sliced up some painter's plastic and taped enclosed the mast in the plastic for fumigation.  About three bombs of nasty stuff set off inside the plastic and left to sit overnight should kill any hitchhikers.  I don't need any complications from an infestation of wood eating insects going after the rafters of the building.