Safe single handed mast raising requires additional equipment to replace the extra set of hands and brains of the second person. I face the same quandary with my 19ft Mariner.
After reading numerous articles on single handed mast raising, including some by Mariner owners, I came up with a list of requirements for the system:
- process must be able to be safely stopped or be safely reversed to starting point when it's discovered shrouds are tangled, rigging was not set up right, or anything is not going right. If you are walking your mast up, you simply walk it back down. If you are using a winch, winch must be reversible under control at any point.
- Mariner has a hinged tabernacle which raises the mast from the stern. The Mariner has a 25ft long mast on a 19ft boat, so the mast is almost balanced when in the tabernacle and sitting on the mast crutch mounted on the rudder gudgeons. So care is required when moving the mast aft to insert the mast base into the tabernacle. I installed a removable trailer roller on top of the mast crutch to facilitate moving the mast fore and aft from/to trailering position from tabernacle.
- Mariner has aft led shrouds, the backstay is almost an afterthought. So when the mast is is the up position the shrouds are tight, but in lower positions, the shrouds are loose and provide ZERO lateral support. (Don't ask me how I know this, but I didn't ding things too badly when I dropped the mast on the starboard quarter) Some kind of lateral stabilization is needed until the mast is at least 2/3 of the way up.
- Walking up the mast is practical with 2 people, but there is no way to hold the mast up while attaching the forestay with just one person. The winch system should be able to tension things enough with the jib halyard to fasten the forestay.
- Any gin pole must have enough strength for the job and secured enough not to flop over during the winching process (my first gin pole broke when the mast shifted laterally, again dropping the mast on the starboard quarter).
All this points out that just one other person keeping tension on the jib halyard while I walk the mast up, and pulling on the jib halyard while I pin the forestay, is all that is needed to save an extra 20+ minutes of work singlehanded rigging of gin pole and baby stays. I have used people standing around at the ramp for this task instead of rigging gin pole.
My gin pole is made of 2x6 with a reversible trailer winch mounted on the gin pole. Metal straps reinforce the jaw area that goes around the mast. 1st failed gin pole was a 2x4 where the jaws broke when the mast swung laterally. I added rope baby stays from about 6ft up the mast (so I can remove them after mast is up) to straps with small blocks on the cabin corners. The baby stays are run through the blocks to the jib sheet cam cleats. The block straps are located a few inches forward and lower than the tabernacle hinge. This allows me to tension the baby stays with the mast lowered, and know they will provide adequate support when the mast is low, but loosen slightly as the shrouds take over. Gin pole length must be set to fit inside the forestay so forestay can be attached with the gin pole in place. I run the gin pole winch line (I replaced the strap with 3/8" line) through a block attached to the aft hole in the stemhead fitting (serves as jib downhaul block in normal use) to the bow cleat. The forestay is pinned in the forward hole on the stemhead fitting. The jib tack is shackled to the middle hole.
At the launching ramp:
- Attach trailer roller to mast crutch. Place mast on roller.
- Roll mast back, and place base in tabernacle
- Attach baby stays to hold mast base in tabernacle, and support laterally when mast is raised
- Loosen shrouds (if not already done) several turns of turnbuckles (count turns!) on shrouds. Makes attaching forestay much easier!
- Attach gin pole to mast, and lead winch line.
- Attach jib halyard to eye on gin pole. Attach forestay to extra eye on gin pole.
- Winch up mast, attach forestay. Remove gin pole.
- Tighten shrouds, remove baby stays.
Each boat is different, so you will have to modify the above for your boat. On a Mariner, the boom is way too long to rig as a gin pole. And the tabernacle does not allow raising from the bow. If the shrouds are not led aft, but are in line with the mast, you don't need baby stays. If your mast is shorter relative to mast step and boat length, you may not need/want roller on mast crutch. And so on.
Fred W
Stuart Mariner 19 Sweet P
Yeopim Creek, Albemarle Sound, NC