Unstepping a Small Boat’s Mast with a Bigger Boat’s Yard

Article and photos by Joshua Wheeler

Murrelet cozied up to Alcyone – Preparing to unstep the mast.

I have sailed with Bertram on Murrelet a few times. When he asked if I would assist him in trailering the boat, of course, I agreed. He explained he would be unstepping the mast in the morning using the schooner Alcyone’s yard. I thought, “That is classic Resourceful Sailor fodder,” and excitedly asked if I could film it. Bertram agreed. Sugar, Alcyone’s co-owner, and Erik, co-proprietor of Port Townsend’s Left Coast Charters (and Sugar’s son-in-law), also graciously agreed.

When you’re small, it pays to have big friends. In this case, big is Alcyone, a 65-foot-on-deck, wood-hulled, gaff-rigged schooner built in 1956 by Frank Prothero on Lake Union in Seattle and now moored in Port Townsend, WA. The small is Murrelet, a 19-foot, modified Augie Nielsen Spitzgatter design sloop. Built by Bertram Levy in Port Townsend from a toppled neighborhood locust tree (and milled by a local sawyer), Murrelet was launched in 2019. Trailerable, she was due for her yearly haul-out, and her mast needed to be removed for transport. Bertram, at 84 and with a lifetime of maritime resourcefulness, has a boat shop at his house, where Murrelet and several others have been built. She and her mast were headed back home for their yearly varnish refresh. Sugar Flanagan of Alcyone offered to help unstep Murrelet’s mast using Alcyone’s foremast yard.