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An Easier Way to Raise a Tasar Mast

Burt Revell has come up with an easier way to raise the mast on his Tasar. Burt describes his method:

The left photo shows the support I built out of 3/4" plywood and 2x6 boards. It slides into to daggerboard case to a point just above the bottom of the case. If I had to do it over I might have used 2x8 boards so there would be more room on the top piece of plywood for when you move the mast off the hinge and over to the mast pin.

The right photo shows the hinge ( a basic garden gate hinge) with the tip bent up to hold the whisker pole above the mast pin when lowered all the way. A piece of line attaches the hinge to the cleat on the mast to hold the mast on the bolt (just a little precaution).

The left photo is very important. In order that the baby stays are taut during the entire lifting process the hinge pin must be in line with the jib cars where the baby stays are tied on.

The right photo shows the 4:1 pulley system attached to the furler. By the way, when the mast is all the way up I put a piece of line about 10" long between the jib halyard and the furler. This allows the mast to tilt backward and give me enough slack to lift the mast off the hinge bolt and move it forward to the mast pin.

The left photo shows the baby stay tied to the spreaders, using a tree support strap with grommets in it to make it simpler to connect and disconnect. There is very little pressure applied by the stays so you don't have to worry about damage to the spreaders.

The right photo shows how little pull is needed to raise the mast. The pulley line feeds through the jib car and cleat so you can halt the proceedure at any time to clear tangled lines. As you can see, I'm no where near the boat.

The left photo shows the mast half way up and cleated so I could walk away to take the shot.

The right photo shows the extent of side sway. I used 1/4" polyrope which cost only $5 but it would be a good idea to use a higher quality low stretch line just as a precaution.

The left photo shows the mast almost all the way up. From here you would attach the 10" extension to the forestay, as shown in the right photo, disconnect the pulley system and whisker pole, attach the forestay to the furler, lift the mast off the hinge bolt and place it on the mast pin, remove the hinged board from the daggerboard case and go sailing.

The last photo shows the easy loading trailer I made with pneumatic tires to roll the boat on. A real piece of cake to load and unload the boat.For the old salts that like the no strain, no stress way of doing things, the extra few minutes of rigging time is well worth it.

Updated 2004-06-17