Mast support/crutch

[Paul Coveney]

Hi all,

I’m thinking about making a wooden support to aid mast raising and lowering. Something that would fit onto the transom and hold the mast high enough to prevent damage to the spreaders etc.

I’m sure I’ve seen something on here….but can’t now find it.

Any help gratefully received.

Cheers,

 

Paul

[Dave Barker]

You probably spotted it in the recent Wayfarer News.

[Traveller]

A cheap but effective method is to take two slats from an IKEA single bed and put a bolt through them at one end. In the other ends you can drill a small hole for some retaining cord. The slats fit perfectly into the little slot at each side of the afterdeck, by the top of the transom (on a mk1 grp). Super effective and super cheap!

[jmcc500]

We did this for our Mk 4 ahead of last year’s Norfolk Broads Rally. We used two pieces of (rather nice) oak, scalloped out the short ends to accept the mast and shaped the lower ends to fit against the corners of the side decks where they join the aft deck/transom. I will get some photos. A rope set to the appropriate length and tied between the long arms stops the crutch from doing the splits. Unfortunately, requires the weight of the mast on it to stay upright as there is no good locating feature on the Mk 4 hull.

We have subsequently had a block added to the bottom of the forestay and a line from there back to the bulkhead to allow us to control the forestay from in the cockpit – this also helps getting the mast up and down, particularly when short-handed.

[Paul Coveney]

Thanks all, that’s given me a bit of inspiration.

[AUTHOR]

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