It’s Burns Night, the haggis has just been ‘cut up’ and there’s been a heavy wind with driving rain all day as the meteorological mast is assembled and tested.
Up on the Hill of Ascog Burns’ immortal words ring true:
The wind blew as ‘twad blawn its last;
The rattling showers rose on the blast
Fragment from Tam o’ Shanter
Thanks to our friends from Chillwind and local contractor Iain ‘Bomber’ Reid the met mast has continued to take shape.
The ground anchors must be tested to make sure they can take the strain
Back at another anchoring point more strain testing is done
This one came out – the resin hadn’t gone down the drill hole sufficiently
So it’s in with another one. Nice rock drill!!
The digger arm helps make a fulcrum…
And up we start to go…
Lifted gently into the air by the SuperWinch on the trusty Defender
The gib is going up, tomorrow this will come all the way over bringinig the mast up with it
At the far (top) end of the mast itself we have Ignition, later allowing the instruments to be rigged up
Tomorrow, allowing for wind direction and strength (not too strong, from behind the base, ie the predominant Sou’westerly) we should have Lift Off.
The instruments have since been fitted so once the mast is upright we will soon start to know just how strongly the wind blows over Ascog Farm.