Raising the mast was interesting and scary all in the same breath. The boat was on the beach so i turned it stern to the wind and propped up the aft section everso slightly to give a bit of forward lean in the mast once vertical. There was 3 of us, my 60+ yr old father, a friend and myself both mid 30's. we thought we would be able to lift it up like we do on a Dart 18 i.e. place the foot of the mast onto the ball, pass two trapeze wires to a person forward of the rig, he then puts his foot on the foot of the mast and holds the trap wires whilst the other 2 guys walk the rig up from the tip towards the rear of the boat. This works perfectly well on a dart but not on this....sheesh that mast is heavy....not to mention long. This makes for a very heavy section as you walk in with arms outstreached above your head. The idea is that you then step up onto the tramp and hey presto the mast is up. What a mistake. We did manage to get it vertical in the end with the help of a 10foot ladder(dads idea) walking it up behind me to gain extra lift, we then shuffeled the ladder in to a point that allowed me and my friend, we inlisted the help of another person at this time to be the man at the front holding the wires and stopping the ball and mast foot parting company,to haul the mast up off the ladder whilst standing on the tramp and shoving it forward, with the shrouds in place, until it fell home over vertical and on the ball. With our helper holding the trapeze wires at the front and acting like an acrobat he was vertually trapezeing off the front bean holding the mast up, while we put the pins into place for the bridal wires.
Don't try this at home. we got away with it i think. Wow it looks good though.
UK - H21SE - Phat Cat
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