A Ranger 20 is a great boat IMO - I have had two (one for rental fleet) my personal one was built by Intermountain Design and was some of the highest quality laminating I have seen on a boat for it's era. I believe the deck mold was a seven part piece as the cockpit seats (among other areas) were undercut to allow for a large seat platform and a larger cockpit sole. The early boats had Kenyon spar sets with EXCELLENT hard black anodizing Hood narrow panel sails (way cool in the day" full teflon boltrope and highest quality deck hardware. Great sailing boats esp. in a moderate to very heavy breeze. PLUS full floatation and standing headroom under the cabin dodger !! If you are looking for a larger boat than a 17 - check them out. The ONLY thing I didn't like was the clipper-type bow - otherwise an 22 on a scale of 10! Stored mine mast-up on the hard - yes - the mast stepping is less than easy due to huge 'companionway'. Enuf of my rant on a non WrinkleBoat. PS very hard to sail to rating in light air but fine above that - + built like a tank (not overweight but STRONG+) GO In a message dated 11/17/2016 4:50:02 P.M. US Mountain Standard Time, john@eco-living.net writes: You're welcome...kids, do try this at home, first... :-) It works on the M17 because the shrouds attach almost beside the mast. If they attached further aft - as they do on some boats - they would have to be detached, or loosened some at least, or the mast would pull them tight before getting fully vertical and couldn't go any further up. On the M15 I think the shrouds attach a bit further aft of the mast...? Looks like it from the line drawing, and from what I remember of being on Larry's boat recently, and Daniel's long ago. So this may not work on an M15, unless you put a lever-lock or some kind of appropriate quick-adjust on the shroud to leave enough slack to get all the way up. You wouldn't want to just detach them, because they're what keeps the mast from just tipping over sideways as you get it up... A friend and I tried raising from bow on a Ranger 20 he used to own - one set of the shrouds had been moved to a further aft mounting point (a not uncommon Ranger 20 mod apparently) and so it just couldn't go up from bow (unless we undid the one set of shrouds, which was more trouble than worth). cheers, John S. On 11/17/2016 03:26 PM, Thomas Buzzi wrote:
thanks for the details, John. I will consider converting to that. Getting rid of the gin pole and its attendant lines would be fine with me. Tom B
On Thu, Nov 17, 2016 at 4:36 PM, John Schinnerer <john@eco-living.net> wrote:
My split backstay wires come together at a stainless steel ring. The single backstay goes from ring to masthead, and it's the single backstay that I connect/disconnect, at the ring.
So it's only the single backstay that I bundle to the mast. The split part, connected at the ring, stays attached to the stern.
My backstay connection setup may be different than some...the standing rigging was supposedly inspected and refurbished some years ago at a yard in Seattle, by the previous owners, it may have gotten changed the...what is OEM split backstay hardware/setup for a 1974 M17? :-)
Raising/lowering mast I can just do solo, no A-frame or gin pole or anything needed. I run a safety/belay line from end of (single part of) backstay through a U-turn on the mast crutch and forward to the bow. The mast is just light enough that while standing at the bow I can bring it up with a lift to my shoulder, then the line starts to be effective; but mostly I just push it up from the first lift to my shoulder and then it's more than halfway up and real easy from there on. The line is really just for safety, going up - I keep the slack out of it, basically. Once mast is up the line secures it there for the minute it takes me to connect the backstay. Coming down, same setup, but the line actually takes the weight at first as the mast starts down and I move up to the bow. Then it's down far enough where I switch the support from safety line to me, and again it's just light enough that I can lower it the rest of the way OK.
Being up on the bow, one is lifting starting from higher up, and can reach higher all the way along, both raising and lowering. Also, the few steps from bow to mast step (or vice versa) are fewer and much easier to negotiate (especially when walking mast up or down!) than from stern to mast step. It probably also helps some that I'm 6' 3" tall. I can reach to support the mast at a higher angle, so the downward weight is less, and then take it down slowly and my reach becomes less and less as the weight I have to support increases. But still, the leverage and height at the bow and the ease of moving towards or away from the step on the foredeck, compared to from cockpit, is a big advantage in any case.
Another plus with raising from bow, when rigging in your typical launch ramp lot, is that the mast sticks out over the tow vehicle, rather than out into what is usually a vehicle lane through the lot.
cheers, John S.
On 11/17/2016 12:43 PM, Thomas Buzzi wrote:
Interesting. How do you handle the split backstay while doing that? Can you use a gin pole to assist you in lowering the mast? I built up my boom crutch with a nice big trailer roller on it so once I drop it onto that I can just roooolll it forward so the step rests on the bow pulpit. Then I just gather up the shrouds, etc. with the bungee cord treatement.
On Thu, Nov 17, 2016 at 1:04 PM, John Schinnerer <john@eco-living.net> wrote:
On my M17, the mast is raised and lowered forward, not aft. It came set up
that way, and I like it for various reasons. One is that the head of the mast is at the front of the boat. So after the mast comes down and is slid back onto the crutch at the rear, I just collect the stays & shrouds starting at the mast head up at the bow, and working down the mast/aft on the boat. I bungee them along the mast as I go along. The shrouds & forestay I keep bundling to the mast towards the bottom/stern, until the remaining slack forms a large/soft "U," just a bit aft of the companionway. The backstay (which you haven't got on an M15) I just run all the way to the bottom/aft, bundling it to the mast along with the halyards & topping lift.
cheers, John S.
On 11/16/2016 08:31 PM, Josh ua wrote:
On Honeybee (M15 hn 115) I gather all three together in an approximately
18 inch diameter coil and securely suspend the coil from the cradled mast near their attachment points using caution to avoid kinks and chafe. Just curious to hear how you do it.
-- John Schinnerer - M.A., Whole Systems Design
- Eco-Living - Whole Systems Design Services People - Place - Learning - Integration john@eco-living.net - 510.982.1334 http://eco-living.net http://sociocracyconsulting.com
-- John Schinnerer - M.A., Whole Systems Design
- Eco-Living - Whole Systems Design Services People - Place - Learning - Integration john@eco-living.net - 510.982.1334 http://eco-living.net http://sociocracyconsulting.com
-- John Schinnerer - M.A., Whole Systems Design -------------------------------------------- - Eco-Living - Whole Systems Design Services People - Place - Learning - Integration john@eco-living.net - 510.982.1334 http://eco-living.net http://sociocracyconsulting.com