Fractional Rig Tuning

[Jansen]

mast crutch on top of rudder head

Sounds like a great idea, but could you give me more details about how it's constructed so ithe rudder will swivel and maybe adjust up and down. Maybe a picture? Did you make it or buy it ready made?
Jansen

I started out discussing how to put the mast up, now we're talking mast down!

For what it is worth, I have a long mast crutch mounted on top of my rudder head.
It allows me to lower the mast for a bridge, then easily reset mt rigging. This is the way I normally carry my mast. The best part is it allows me to put the pop top up, when the mast is secured this way.

I anticipate having to lower my mast this June when I start off on the Snake River at Hell's Point Park. There is a bridge between Lewiston and Clarkston, Idaho, that I'll have to get under, and then raise my mast.

 

[oreana123]

Jansen

Search for "mast carrier" on this foum. John S

 

[Jansen]

I just made one one out of pvc and it works great.

 

[oreana1234]

I went out boating on a M Mac today, first time for me. I picked up the mast and roller furling foil without any assistance, but it was a stout deadlift for me. Then I realized why it is useful to rig the mast raising gear. First of all, the weight is not so bad if one really must have a furler. But the mast is hard to hold onto because it pivots, it wants to roll out of your hands, unlike a non-pivoting mast. But what really kills if for me as far as single-handed unassisted mast raising is that the tension is already on the forestay length, you have to overcome the rig tansion to pin the foil. Since the foil is full length, there is no room for a Johnson type lever, and unless the whole roller assy was shortened, there probably is not room for a turnbuckle. and there is not any real access to the pinning area if you are trying to hold the rig up and pull on the foil, the roller drum blocks one handed access as one leans one's weight into the rigging.

So Macgregor has supplied yet another type of standing rigging: masthead, fractional, no backstay, pivoting mast, cutter rig, fixed and pivoting spreaders and I am sure there are others. Basically, Capt Kermie is comparing apples to oranges here, the rig on my 26D is nothing like the rig on the M model, and if one tries to tighten the forestay to improve pointing, one will definitely have to pull a strain on the standing rig to pin the forestay foil.