Raising & Lowering Your Mast

Several skippers that have purchased a used Ranger 26’s have asked about the proper steps for raising and lowering the mast. Below are the manufacturer provided instructions for raising the mast, single handedly.

Admiral’s Personal Instructions

Personally, I’ve never done it quite this way, but it does work and is probably a bit safer than my “approved” method, which I’ll detail for the more adventurous skippers. 

You going to need a crew. I’ve done this procedure with just myself and a friend, but it’s much easier and probably safer with 3-4 deck hands in addition to yourself. So you might need beer to attract innocent by standers close enough to your boat so that you can whack them on the head and conscript them into service. Also, this procedure works best when the boat is on the trailer. Everything is more stable and there is much less worry or fuss about keeping the mast from leaning to one side or the other. It can work at dock, even with just two people (if one is strong enough to lift the mast up enough so that the wench can be taken advantage of. But if you do attempt to do this in the water, be sure to drop your centerboard (it won’t keep the boat from listing as you scurry around the deck trying to keep the mast from leaning port or starboard, but it will slow the listing down enough to make things a little less frantic.

1. Move the mast back… until you can attach the pivot pin onto the plat on top of the housetop step block. That pin will keep the mast from sliding out of place as it goes up and keep it in place when tuning your rigging.

2. Get all your shrouds and stays sorted out. Imaging how they will need to move to get their upright position. What needs to rotate, move or change? They are going to want to hang off the sides and they will often not orient themselves correctly as you raise the mast. You’ll need to watch them and check them half way up and just before all the way up for T-Bolts stuck and not flowing straight off the their straps or kinks in the cable. If you miss this, you’ll end up bending a T-Bolt! (Yep, I’ve done it twice!)

Once it’s up nearly all the way, the shrouds and stays will keep it centered and all the person on top need to do is keep pushing the mast toward the bow while the T-Bolt is slipped over the front hole and pinned in place. Don’t stop until both the pin and the cotter/ring pin is in place. That main pin can slip out and then that mast could come down in a very short second doing serious harm, bodily injury or even death.

3. Attach a snap block (I use one of the jib sheet snap blocks – Right) to the forestay bowsprit attachment point. There are basically two holes in the stainless steel piece coming up through the tip of the bow sprit. The forward one is for your forestay, the rear one is for your jib, or in this case, your snap block). Put the snap block in the hole that your attach the heel of your jib sail to. Be sure to leave the front one open because it is the one that you are going to attach the T-Bolt toggle Jaw (that’s the little thing at the end of your forestay, that slips over the attachment point, which gets secured with a fat pin, and kept in place with a cotter pin or ring pin.

4. Run a 30′ docking line through the block, tie one end through the turnbuckle of the forestay, (run it through the middle area of the turnbuckle where the screw ends meet, it should be mostly open from when your relaxed the tension on the stays when dropping the mast). Leaving the T-Bolt Toggle Jaw open, and have that pin read to put in later.

5. Run the other end of the line back toward the cockpit to another snap block attached to the toe rail (like you would to for a working jib) and to your wench. Give it 3 turns so that even a 72 lbs., dripping wet sea dog can, with a little tension, keep the line from slipping once you start raising the mast. Get your wench handle and make sure that who ever is going to man the wench knows how to use them both. Someone’s life my depend on it, not theirs of course but don’t tell them that! 😉 If you have a stronger sailor at the wench, then as soon as the mast is tilted up more than about 15 or 20 degrees, they will be able to use the wench with a wench handle to pull the mast up the rest of the way all by themselves. It would just be slower and you would still need someone to keep the mast from leaning port or starboard as it goes up. Generally, I have who ever is on the wench just keep taking up the slack and provide some extra pull as the the crew on deck dose most of the lifting. It’s faster and the only thing to worry about is it going to fast (snagged lines) or the wench crew not keeping up on the slack.

6. All hands on deck! Be sure to explain to your now inebriated crew (Thanks to your liberal libatious bribery) that they have to start the lift with a tall person in the cockpit and two on the house top (as far back as they can comfortably stand, hatch cover slid shut!) and as the mast goes up, once it’s got enough help from the wench and one person can handle it by themselves, two of them need to move to the port or starboard rail of the boat at the same time to balance each other’s weight and tend to the shrouds to make sure they are not twisted or snagged while one person remains on the house top to guide the mast up and keeping it centered.

TIP: Its a really good idea to pause when the mast is about 45 degrees up… check all the shrouds and stays. Continue slowly from then on and pause at about 80-90% and check everything again. Pay especially close attention to the T-Bolts of the port and starboard shrouds, where they attach to the straps at the toe rail. They LOVE to not pivoted up and over to the top of the strap. Instead, one or more will likely get stuck and basically bind in the sideways position and then when you force the mast up the rest of the way, it will bend those T-Bolts. If yours get stuck, just lower the mast down enough so that you can pull sideways on the shroud cable down by the T-Bolt, keep tension on it as you rotate the cable up to a vertical position. This will let the ends of the T, clear the square corners of the straps and then you can continue the lift. Again, make sure you have someone on that wench. They don’t have to be strong… they just have to work as a safety if you have enough muscle to do the lifting. If they are comfortable, they can help bring the weight off the lift and keeping it from coming down if someone slips or has to move. Note: I recommend promising beer, but not putting it in your crews hands until AFTER they have help you safely raise the mast. Or, just serve wine like a real sailor! 😉

7. OK, here we go! I then have my crew of of conscripted sailors dead lift the mast by brute force (much grunting and complaining is often heard and it’s a good idea to have whip or Billy club to motivate your crew 😉 into the upright position on the house top mast step, while a higher ranking officer mans the wench to keep tension on the line and act as a safety in case one or more of the sailors gets distracted by a pint of grog they had set down and accidentally kicked overboard mid lift! Go to 45 degrees and check your shrouds and T-Bolt connections. Go up to 80 degrees and check again. go all the way up and have your house top crew keep forward pressure on the mast.

Once the the mast is up, I secure the bow stay with a clevis pin. You may need to have someone come up front and pull downward on the forestay so that you have your hands free to line up the T-Bolt and slip them pin in place and secure it. Once your done, you can until the docking line and remove your snap block and put it on the toe rail for the jib.

Success!

You may now proceed to tighten the stays and tune the rigging while your exhausted, huffing and puffing, moaning and groaning, sailors lay prostrate on the deck, dock, or just float off with the current.

Alternate Method of Mast Raising (3)

Many larger marinas have simple or more sophisticated cranes near their boat ramps or slings. Many are free! Where I sail, Fern Ridge Reservoir, there is a telephone pole right next to the curb along a long stretch of the main trailer parking lot. It has a trailer wench, cable toing up to a couple pulleys at the top that run the cable out to a fixed boom arm and then back down to with a strap you can attach around your boom to lift or low it. It’s slow, but it removes all the fuss of having several people doing a lifting jig dance on your deck. Two people, or one, can easily crank up the mast and do the whole process by themselves. There is room to pull your boar trailer next to it without obstructing other traffic on it’s way to the ramp. Honestly, I had not noticed that it was even there for a more than 10 years! We just hadn’t needed it.

I tried it once, when we were short handed and it was a “calm” and “leisurely” experience. In other words, it took about an hour longer than our typical 15 to 20 min prep and lift process with three or four people. The hand wench was just way too slow to use normally. (it was geared to haul in a 5,000 lbs. boat up on to a trailer so each turn was only an inch or two of travel on the cable). I’ve never used it since, but if you are short of hands and long on time, these things will still get you in the water with your mast up.

Yet Another Way to Raise Your Mast

Single handed? This is how David Derrer raises his mast. Photos curtesy of David & Carole Derrer, Emerald Sea