Sailboat Owners Forums

DSC01249 Here's my boom vang. It has about 55' of 3/8" braid line on it and I use it to raise my mast as well as it's intended use which is a boom vang.
SS Gin Pole sketch The Gin Pole. I keep it down below in my quarter birth compartment. It's there whenever I need it.
IMG 0027 With a rear mast crutch mounted on the stern rail you can mount your rudder on the transom before you back down the ramp. All you need to do is center the tiller and tie it off to keep the rudder blade straight. It also helps if you have a rudder blade hold-up pendant line.
DSC01268 This is another method of attaching the baby stays to your mast. I tried it for one season and abandoned it for the mast yoke. Some dude wrote and article in Small Craft Advisor on mast raising and this is one of his "brain children." In essence what you see here is a S.S. ring attached to a sail slide in the mast track. The baby stays are tied to the ring and then snapped into the rings of the pivot bridles on both sides of the boat. The Main Halyard is attached to the ring and pulled up, cleated off at the bottom of the mast to tension the baby stays. I really found that setting this up was a big PITA. No hard feelings to the writer of the article but I'll stick with my mast yoke. Don't get me wrong. These are all good ideas. Try them out and if you like them, adopt them. There's always something better and easier though. You just have to come up with the idea.
DSC01265 Years ago, I didn't have a mast yoke to connect my baby stays to. All I did was tie a "Lineman's Rolling Hitch" to each of my lower stays and it worked OK. That's one hitch that won't slip, not even around an 1/8" stay wire.
DSC00447 This gadget is indispensable on my boat. It's called a Johnson Handy-Lock. It's like a backstay adjuster. I don't use it for that. I only use it to throw slack into my fore stay to remove my furler when I want to lower my mast. One of the reasons why I had this installed was to rid my boat of the end of boom to the backstay sheeting by mounting a traveler in front of my companionway. It's important to leave the open turnbuckle on the backstay just above the HL so that the backstay can be removed from the mast head. The turn buckle also provides some extra adjustment if needed. These Handy-Locks are pricey but you may be able to buy a used one like I did, or buy a newer different adjustable lever type back stay adjuster similar to what is used on the Mac boats. This particular HR has a lever that you need to turn. They make one that works a little different than this one for cheaper money. I think that this HL would work on an O'Day 22 but I'm not sure. I never need to mess with my side stay turnbuckles when I want to loosen my forestay to drop my mast and this is the beauty of this gadget. It does it all.
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