Advice Please - Stepping Mast Facing Downhill

Hi Folks,
Every year I find it an ordeal to step the mast on my Hobie 16. It takes two people to raise it, one to attach the forestay. I'm thinking next time I'll go to a boat launch with the boat pointing downhill, and make gravity work in my favour. Does anyone have any experience -- or thoughts -- doing this?

I appreciate any advice, thanks.

You're describing two separate issues. One is the actual lifting of the mast and the second is locking it in position after it is raised.

As far as the raising the mast is concerned, it will make it easier. Depending upon the slope you're talking about is how much of a benefit you'll see. Until you reach a certain point, you're not really changing the lift requirement. I've done ladders downhill and until I get close to vertical I don't really notice much difference. It's after you go vertical and the top of the ladder is now going downhill that you really can see a difference.

As far as locking the mast in place, gravity is only going to do that once you pass vertical and the top of the mast is going downhill. That's going to be a rather steep angle. Until you've got the mast past vertical, it's going to want to fall backwards. You need some way in which to pin it in place to stop gravity. There are several methods that have been used and a bunch of videos showing them all.

My favorite method and the one I use is attaching the jib halyard in its normal place. Once the mast has been raised, I tighten the jib halyard and use the clam cleat to lock it in place. Then I can grab the fore stay and attach it. It's relatively simple, with the caveat that you've got to set the jib halyard into a position where you can grab it easily while holding the mast upright.

By the way, I'm 70 and still frequently do mast raising by myself. That being said, I sure have gotten to the point of appreciating some help.

Jim Clark-Dawe

First, this post should probably be moved to the General section, not the Parts discussion section.

Given the amount of mast rake on a Hobie 16, tilting the boat bow down is probably not a practical solution. You would need to tip the bows down at such an extreme angle before the mast flopped forward enough for gravity to safely hold it in position that it would probably be awkward to stand on the trampoline with the boat tilted at such an angle.

If you’re looking for away to step the mast solo, then use the jib halyard as a temporary stay as described in the previous post.

sm

For every degree the boat is pointed downhill, there's one less degree you have to raise the mast toward vertical, so it will help, but making "gravity work in your favour" is a bit of an overstatement. I'm rather short, and, when the mast is in that difficult zone about shoulder high, it's still not far up, and I'm closer to the pivot point than a lot of folks. I much prefer to have the boat pointed downhill some...every little bit helps!

That said, you still need someone or something to hold the mast up while you the forestay is pinned. (We have a guy in our club who will raise the mast and hold tension on the forestay while he jumps down and pins it. He does a lot of other disastrously dumb stuff, too.) If you're raising solo, using the jib halyard as described above is the way to go. I run a cheater line from the halyard around the front of the bridles, and through the jib cleat with the bitter end in my pocket. The cheater, trap wires, and shrouds need to be laid out nice and clean so they don't foul, trip you, etc. during the process. Once the mast is up, you tighten the cheater securely in the jib cleat and pin the forestay. For me, it also helps if the head end of the mast is resting on a ladder or such (mast is not resting on the rear crossbar) before I start.

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Jerome Vaughan
Hobie 16

Thanks to all, that answers my question. Next time I step, I will try two things: I'll rest the mast on a ladder instead of the rear cross bar and I'll try propping up the sterns of the hulls a little bit. Any further comments on that are welcome.

I'm happy to move this thread to the General section if someone can tell me how to do that.