mast raising

On Wednesday, after Christmas, it seemed a slow day. The weather was dry and above freezing so in the afternoon we decided to attempt to raise and install the mast in the Etchells, in the driveway.

The spreaders are about 20 feet above the base of the mast and the mast hole in the cabin is about 9 feet above the ground so the "sky hook" needed to be at least 30 feet above the ground. I thought about using the roof of our house but it is only 23 feet above the ground.

I made a "gin pole" using an aluminum extension ladder which was about 17 feet long. I had a spinnaker pole 10 feet long and the garage roof was 9 feet above the driveway. By hinging the foot of the ladder to the roof of the garage, lashing it in an extended configuration, and then lashing the spinnaker pole to the top of the ladder we achieved a gin pole whose top was over 31 feet above the driveway. We rigged three rope guys and a lifting rope through a snatch block at the head of the pole and erected the pole.

The mast weighs less than 100 pounds so I tested the rig with my weight (210#) and it didn't break, bend, or bow, so I figured we had a factor of safety of 2 or more.

The whole family was in on this experiment. Jonathan and Christopher balanced the mast while Marjorie and I pulled on the hoisting rope. When the mast is hoisted, ready to slip into the mast step, the top of the mast is about 50 feet off the ground and that, is impressive!

We were just about high enough to lower the mast through the hole in the cabin top when I noticed the upper section of the ladder was taking on a distinct bowed shape. We rested the foot of the mast on the cabin to reduce the load on the gin pole. Christopher suggested we change the angle of our lifting rope to put it directly under the tip of the pole rather than to the side. This helped and soon we had lowered the mast in the boat and bolted it to the keel. We attached a few shrouds, put on the boat cover and since it was 6:00PM and dark, we called it a day and put on the boat cover.

That night it snowed about 12 inches and the last picture was taken the next morning.

It was exciting to have the mast in place. It was starting to look like a "real boat" and I would now be able to figure out some of the rigging details.

Work on the boat will slow down a lot due to the winter weather and to other obligations during Christmas, and beyond.