[Rhodes22-list] Raising the Mast without a Crane

[John Lock]

At 08:50 AM 7/19/2007 -0400, Hank wrote:
>I plan to raise my mast shortly and I don't have a trailier or mast raising
>system from Stan.  Don't intend to do it enough to justify the cost.  Here
>is what I plan to do, please let me know you opinions.

I tried something very similar and failed.  There are several 
problems you will encounter -

1) The people on the ground pulling cannot exert much leverage until 
the mast is pretty well on its way up.  In other words, the person(s) 
on the boat will be doing all the work to get it started until about 
30 degrees up.  Then the person on the boat has to scramble and keep 
up with the rapidly rising mast to stabilize it.

2) When the lifting starts, there is no lateral stabilizing 
mechanism.  The person(s) in the boat have to do all the lifting AND 
try to keep it straight.  Unless you have very strong, very tall 
people, it's almost impossible to lift and keep it 
straight.  Especially if your front-puller gets even a little out of 
whack.  The mast will start to drift to one side and exert far more 
force than you can control by hand.

Now, if you have enough people, you could rig side lines for 2 more 
folks to keep the thing straight.  But now you're talking about 
coordinating the efforts of 4+ people to all pull evenly.  I wouldn't 
try it again.  Without some mechanical means to raise the mast.

Cheers!

John Lock
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s/v Pandion - '79 Rhodes 22
Lake Sinclair, GA
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