[Rhodes22-list] Your favorite way of pulling out mast step

[The Rhodes 22 Email List]

Jefferson,

It may seem odd but, as others have pointed out, it can be GOOD design to
design something to break if it's a lot easier to fix than what it's
attached to. 

My Hobie trimaran just proved this for a second time (first was the break
away rudder post that saved mangling the rudder). I was sailing from a
beach, had raised CB, forgot to lower, couldn't figure out why I was blowing
sideways towards rocks (grandson on board - distracting). Too late I noticed
CB and left ama (float/whatever) hit rocks hard. The strut that held it out
from main hull had a breakaway plastic bolt which broke - also a piece of
something that kept strut from falling into water. It even had a spare
bolted in nearby.  Result, no damage and fix just required rebolting.

R22 is my second "large" trailerable. Previous was a San Juan 21.  San Juan
had only two shrouds, an upper and a lower on each side that were even with
the base of the mast in altitude and fore/aft. This meant could leave them
attached and with no adjustment, raise/lower mast and they kept mast from
going sideways through entire process. So, I built a gin pole out of a 2x4
and some plywood that you could plonk down on top of the mast at the base
(could lock into mast and some bolts sticking out so base of gin pole held
securely). Then I just pulled out jib halyard over top of gin pole (groove
in top), hooked halyard to a new line running to bow stem where I installed
a block that then routed this line back to cockpit and a winch. Making sure
jib halyard securely cleated I wrapped around winch a few times and cranked
away. Always worked perfectly - you literally couldn't screw up. I have to
have fool proof things because I'm such a fool. When lowering, I could just
put a few wraps on winch and control it with my hand. The line I used for
this was less than 3/16 or smaller. Mast was a little lighter and no huge
genoa to raise with it so job a bit easier admittedly.

It's not raising/lowering the mast that's hard - any way to rig a gin pole
as I did will do it. The trick is to mount gin pole base securely AND
prevent mast going sideways during process. It sounds like you are  using
the boom as a gin pole and raising mast starting with mast on bow pulpit?
The big problem I see is not having any control over mast going sideways.
You must get this figured out or you WILL have repeat failures.

The Rhodes shroud geometry is very different from SJ 21. Yours may be
different from mine. Mine has a set of forward lowers and aft lowers  that
also attach to boat about 6 or 8 inches lower than base of mast. It also has
a set running through spreaders roughly opposite mast but again attaching 6
or 8 inches lower than base of mast. I also don't know if you have the pop
top. If you do and mast is set up so top is to rear of boat, you must have a
mast holder at stern that sticks up 6 or 8 feet above top of stern, other
wise base can't sit in mast step because of pop top. IF you have this set up
you can use Stan's method of keeping mast from going sideways  1) have upper
shrouds connected as they will be when mast is up - keep it from going side
ways as mast nears verticle and 2) the forward lowers lengthened by about 8"
of chain (should be tight with mast down).  The forwards will then keep it
from going sideways when mast is partway up. I know his system works raising
from bow but here I'm totally ignorant. 

I don't expect this to be a recipe for your problems but hope the discussion
of the geometry as I understand it may set off some light bulbs (LED
ideally).





-----
Brooks Bridges
1986, Recycled 2006 "Changes"
Cambridge, MD
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