Timely question. I just had the mast on my 380 pulled Monday. It was pretty straightforward. The yard attached a strap to the mast between the the upper and lower spreaders...closer to the upper one, so that the mast would be bottom heavy from the lifting point. The shrouds and forestay were detached..five points of attachment. Then a clevis pin at the bottom of the mast was removed to release the mast from the deck. The crane picked it straight up and swung it over the ground. In this case the crane was an attachment on the travel lift, so they drove the travel lift over to the storage location and set it on a couple of 55gal drums w/boards & carpet on top.
Preparation included:
1. Remove the sails.
2. Pull all the halyards through all the turning blocks and clutches and back to the mast. (I ran messenger lines through as I pulled the halyards to the mast so it would be easy to reinstall them.)
3. Detach the Boom and Vang from the mast...just two clevis pins.
4. Detach the topping lift from the boom and tie to mast. I used the topping lift to support and control the boom until I had it secured on deck.
5. Remove the cover plates inside the cabin and detach all the electrical connections to the mast. On my boat that was three sets of wires for the Anchor, Steaming, and Deck lights, the connector for the windex at the top of the mast, and the VHF cable.
6. Remove the cotter pins from the turnbuckles. Don't loosen turnbuckles or remove cotter pins from the clevis pins attaching the shroud ends to the deck until the crane is rigged to take the weight of the mast.
7. Drove the boat the 1nm distance from my slip to the travel lift.
I did every by myself until I got into the travel lift.
Hardest parts?
removing the sails by myself.
removing (wrestling with) the cotter pins while yard crew waited....and watched....and commented. some of the fittings had spread over the years pressing against the cotter pins...access to straighten them could be difficult.
Now I just need to get some parts and do the repairs...the internal extrusion separated from the top swivel.. rivets torn out.
