Rick, Yes it can be done without much difficulty. We raise and lower more than just the beginning and end of the season. The side stays are in line with mast so should not have to be loosened, unless you keep the rig unusually tight. In 5 years I have had no problems with any side to side swaying, so you may not have to take any extra steps of tying down laterally. Your choice. We have an extended winch post on our Pacific trailer that helps somewhat. I bolt a 3" turning block just below the top mast crutch. A 1/2" line bowline to the jib halyard (other end of halyard is cleated off at the mast) runs aft to the starboard winch on the cockpit coaming. I tension that line with 3 wraps on the winch and cleat it off at the stern. Once that line is secured, you can make sure the mast pivot bolt and nut is loosened, and release your forestay. This may take a few turns on the turnbuckle and release the pin or shackle to the bow fitting. Lowering involves easing the line around the winch. You may need to tug the mast aft to get it started. Give a couple of inches of slack and just keep the 3 line wraps on the winch. You can ease it very slowly with a lot of control. I used to stand on the seats, straddling the cockpit to take it on my shoulder, but now just lower it all the way down to the factory wood crutch that mounts in the rudder gudgeons. Once down, you can pull the mast pivot bolt and slid the mast forward onto the pulpit or winch post support. You should not have to release the side stays or back stay. Just loosely coil them in each side. We secure them to the mast with ball bungees, and strap the mast to the forward and aft mast supports. Halyards are coiled and bungeed to the mast as well. Going in reverse to raise it, you do need to give it a lift up off the mast crutch. Another time saver is to leave the main flaked and tied to the boom, and stow it in the cabin like that with the main sheet and gear attached. We have a topping lift that we leave on as we swing the boom into the cabin. Then we release the topping lift. Makes it an easy one person job. Bill Bill
On May 21, 2014, at 5:21 PM, GARY M HYDE <gmhyde1@mac.com> wrote:
Rick. It works. Just catch the mast for the last bit down onto the carry support. Since I have a jib furler, I actually rig a 4:1 block an tackle to the forestay rather than to the jib halyard.
~~~_/)~~~ Gary Sent from my iPhone :-)
On May 21, 2014, at 2:02 PM, Rick Davies <jdavies104@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi all,
I'm trying to figure out a simple (meaning without a gin pole) way to lower the mast on my M17 single-handed without having to walk it down the hard way in the cockpit. I thought of attaching one end of the main sheet to the front mast support on the trailer and the other end to the jib halyard. I think someone on the forum described something like this quite a while ago, but I can't find it. I plan on using a line tied around the mast as high as I can reach and secured to the chainplates on each side for lateral support. I'd plan to lower the mast until I can reach it easily from the cockpit, then lower it the rest of the way by hand, so the tension in the support line doesn't get too big as the mast approaches horizontal. Has anyone tried anything like this? Hate it find out it doesn't work the hard way.
Thanks,
Rick M17 #633 Lynne L