Mast1

There was a thread a while back about raising the mast. I had been dismasted last December and after Winter and working to get a new mast, I had enough money from

insurance to hire a yard to do it. In the Wharram tradition, I decided to see if I could do it myself. I sometimes screw up, thus the broken mast, and also some

apprehension about raising the new mast by my own design. I only moved it on board for the foot of the mast to reach the mast step in the middle of the boat. I had a

whale of a bowsprit. The foot was lashed to a stanchion just forward of where the mast would be, and an ordinary extension ladder was used as a strut where the main

halyard and topping lift were secured. A line was led through a snatch block at the rear crosstube to a winch, and a towing strap on the extension ladder led to a come-

along to a line to a cleat on the starboard aft deck. The greatest effort was when the mast was horizontal, after that it got easier.