Ogre_fl wrote:
Thanks for taking the time to take & post that video.
Gives me a much clearer idea of how it works and what is involved.
How did things go dropping the mast?
From the video the bows do seem down an bit and the mast, though raked to the boat, is looking like it its almost straight upright to the world.
With the forward weight of the gin pole and the jib plus any wind from the back I could see it keeping the mast from falling back on its own.
Can I ask about your aft mast support?
Is that something you added to the trailer or was it already there.
Any chance of a picture of that?
Once we were back and about to lower the mast, I unhitched the ball and cranked the trailer jack, the mast did in fact change attitude so that there was slack in the shrouds and the forestay bridle had tension...so I know that would work if I were alone...simplest, though, when I'm alone might be to do a U'ey in the parking lot and face into the wind on a slight upslope.
The aft mast support I had added by my local trailer guy shortly after I got the Getaway. It is a welded U shape welded to the trailer frame with a pipe stub sticking up. A crutch is then inserted into the stub and pinned with a hitch pin (and removed for launch). It is approximately the same height as the mast rest in front and it has a roller installed so the mast rolls easily. The trailer guy did it for about $300. It's made from "roll bar stock" and is very sturdy. The original idea was to eliminate the need for a mast raising crutch by lifting the mast a few feet. I put a block near the top of the mast rest in front, then attached a line to the jib/forestay. Attached the mainsheet to the line and pulled while I was on the tramp keeping the mast steady and oriented correctly. The system worked OK going up, but coming down the mainsheet would continually cleat which was a problem. Rather than fiddle with it to make it work better (for example, reversing the mainsheet so the cleat doesn't matter), for $250 I bought the Stepper III.
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