mast raising hardware issue

Posted By: Mike Pope
Date: 7/4/08 11:30a.m.

Report: outside forum guidelines

In Response To: More mast stepping details (pic) (Greg CM26 Seattle CLM005771173)

Thanks for this most helpful entry. However ---- I purchased and restored a 1983 Starwind 19 a couple years ago. It has a 29' mast with four side standing rigging mast cables, one pair forward and one pair slightly aft on the port and starboard deck. There is a split aft stay with two attachment points on the transom and, of course the head stay. When I attempted to step the mast in my driveway, (like your drawing shows) I attached the aft stays to thier place, and then attached the shorter of the two sets of side stays in their normal sailing position. I put the rear pin in the mast hinge on the deck. I attached the end of a line around the headstay line (about 6" above the fitting where it hooks to the deck hardware). I attached the line to my trailer winch, and found the resistance to be too great to lift it (bad physics). So I fashioned a 6.5' PVC pipe gin pole. Secured one end to the mast with a ring clamp, and made a slot in the other end so the forestay could release when the angle made clearing it necessary. I got the mast up about 45 degrees when the mast suddenly swung radically to port, ripping the deck step hinge out of cabin top and the whole lot landing in a pile in the yard. The side stays did not tighten up as the mast raised to keep the mast from "leaving". On subsequent examination I realized that my boat, unlike the drawing, has a cabin. The mast stays attach on the deck, 18" below the cabin top where the mast steps. The shorter stays are over 8' long, and unless the mast is almost vertical, there is 2-4 feet of slack in the lines between their attachment on the deck and their attachment on the mast. So, unlike your drawing, the physics of this raising event when the attachment point of the stays and the foot of the mast are not on the same plane, don't seem to work. I am considering making all the repairs and repeated the process again. This time, what if I made two 4' stretch resistant lines. Install an eye bolt on either side of the mast, and a matching set of two eye bolts on the cabin trunk. This would make a smaller triangle but a sturdy base on the same relative plane as the foot of the mast. Then I could gin pole and trailer winch the thing into place ? I'd rather not make all these holes in the boat and mast without someone's 2 cents worth who knows a lot more about this than I do. Thanks for any ideas or suggestions you can throw in. A sail boat isn't anything but a yard ornament if you can't put a mast up on it ! Mike I'm 60 and sail by myself. I have never launched the boat because