[Rhodes22-list] mast raising procedures

[Bill Effros]

Peter,

Still catching up with old email.

Did anyone answer this?

Stan has been tinkering with the system for years, so all of our systems 
are different from most other peoples'.  There is no trick to getting 
the mast up.  The trick is the ability to do it safely under any 
conditions, even if you've never done it before.

The aft/forward lower question is an attempt to safely transfer the load 
from one set of stays to another at the point when the mast is roughly 
45 degrees off the deck.  And to do this without putting undue stress on 
either the crane, and its attachment to the deck, or the stays and their 
attachment to the deck.

If you leave the stays sloppy you can use a single set through the 
entire arc, but the load is more apt to shift in wind, or wake if the 
mast is being raised on the water.

I use a set of fast pins for the entire mast raising process, so that 
switching stays is not an issue.  Push button fast pins with proper 
backing plates are just as safe as pins with cotter rings.  The only 
reason I don't use them when the stays are in position is that they are 
longer than regular pins, and more likely to scrape me when I move past 
them.

Do you need more answer than this?

Bill Effros

Peter Thorn wrote:

>Slim and Bill,
>
>Thanks for posting the mast procedures again.  Now that I've tried it a few times, it makes a lot more sense and the reading is certainly a little more interesting.  However I was surprised to read the part about connecting the *aft* lowers to the mast crane.
>
>Raven doesn't seem to be set up that way.  On Raven, the forward lowers have fast-pins and all the other turnbuckles are fixed with ring-dings.  So, I connected the forward lowers to the crane and everything worked just fine - it's actually less work than you both describe.  The fast-pins speed the connection from the crane hoist to the chainplates a little bit too.  When I checked the rig tension with the Loos gauge everything was within specs, except the forward lowers needed a little tightening as one might expect.  
>
>I know I'm pretty lucky that Mark and the other previous owners took such thought and care in setting up Raven quite nicely.  But I still wonder if I'm missing something:  why do the instructions call for connecting the *aft* lowers to the crane?  To paraphrase Rumsfeld "I don't know what I don't know".  Does it make a difference which lowers you use?
>
>Thanks,
>
>PT
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