I don't know who had the original idea, but thanks to Arlyn Stewart for posting and discussing it in various forms. I wanted to take my mast down this year to inspect the rigging and fix a mast light. I've had the boat for 3 years and never had the mast down. I could of had the marina guy come over to my boat with the cherry picker and for a fee he would have assisted; however, I've been wanting to get a trailer, and one of the sticking points in my mind was dealing with the mast. I've read copiously on various sailing forums, notably Trailer Sailor, about the various methods and systems of raising and lowering the mast; the gin poles, articulating A-Frame, etc.. Then I came across the Standing A-Frame and thought that looked interesting enough for me to give it a go. If the system worked well, I'd have one less unknown going into a decision about whether to get a trailer or not. I also now have a system, and set of tools that I can lower and raise my mast at any time. You can see a diagram of the system at the URLs above. I've also posted pictures in the photo section of this site. I probably over built it a little, but as you can see from the photos, I'm right in tight next to two other boats; I didn't want to take a chance and damage someone else's boat. The system is comprised of 2 2x4s that are bolted at the top and secured some how to the deck. There is a pulley at the top of the A-frame, I ran my bolt through pulley hole. A line is run fore and aft to secure it upright. The fore line needs to be strong and secured well, it takes the load. The aft line only needs to hold up the A-frame until you get the mast weight on the fore line. The length of the 2x4s is not critical, as it is in the articulating A-Frame method, I used 14 foot 2x4s. I chose 14 footers because I wanted the lest amount of stress on the line and A-frame; I figured the shorter the A-frame the more load. 14 footers puts the pulley near the same height as the spreaders. With the Beneteau 23.5's we are lucky to have holes in our toe rails, so fastening the bottom of the A-frame legs to the boat is a simple matter of bolting to toe rail. If you read through various ideas and methods of mast raising system, you'll notice that some sort of side to side (port starboard), or lateral support is often used. Often temporary lines, or shrouds are put in place. One method called for t- joints added to the mast about eight feet up and temp shrouds inserted for the raising or lowering, then removed. If you read some of the discussion on the Catalina site I've pointed you to, you will notice that NO lower shrouds are called for with the Standing A-Frame. I however, wanted the security of lateral support, especially with other boats in such close proximity. If you use some sort of shroud to support the mast laterally while lowering or raising, a problem exists if the point of connection to the deck is not on the same plane as the mast pin. If the shrouds are fore or aft, or higher or lower than the mast pin, they will either tighten or slacken during the raising or lowering of the mast. In order to keep them taught throughout the entire range of motion, they need to be anchored on the same plane as the mast pin. So I made brackets that bolt to the toe rail and allow me to attach the lower shroud to the bracket, and it's on the same plane as the mast pin. I wanted to use the lower shrouds on the mast instead of attaching any temporary lines, why not use what's there. As you can see from the photos, I used angle iron with holes already pre-drilled from the factory. You can get this at Home Depot, or Lowes. You'll need some sort of brace to counter the pulling load, I used some construction T bracket I had, you could use any number of things, such as more angle iron, steel strap, whatever. I put an eye bolt through one of the holes in the angle iron that put me at the correct location for being on the same plane as the mast pin. The lower shroud is removed from the turnbuckle and inserted into the eye bolt. I used a washer and the turnbuckle as a nut and tighten up the lower shrouds. The eye bolt turns as the mast lowers or raises and thus keeps the lower shroud taught, and anything from kinking. I lowered the mast with 20 knots of wind directly from Port and the mast stayed straight all the way down. To find the correct location for the eye bolt, low tech - insert a 4 foot 1/4 inch rod in mast pin hole and use this as a guide; or, high tech - some sort of laser leveling device might get you a more precise reading. I used the low tech method, worked great. Attach to the right A-frame leg ( for me as I'm right handed ) a trailer wench. I used nylon line that was tested for 3000 lbs breaking strength, working load 300 lbs. Run the line from the wench up through the pulley and loop around mast to make a bridle; I used a bow line. Attach main halyard to bridle, attach a messenger line to bridle, haul up bridle to spreaders. For the maiden lowering I wanted to secure an extra line from about mid way up the 2x4s to the anchor cleat, I wasn't sure how much pressure there would be on the fore line and wanted make sure nothing broke - it's probably not needed. Once everything is in place, take a turn on the wench crack until the baby stay is slack. Remove jib furler, and baby stay. I slackened the upper shrouds, not sure you need to? At this point the mast is being held up by the 2 lower shrouds on the temp brackets, and the wench line. Lowering the mast was a piece of cake, much easier than I even imaged. I lowered it , then immediately raised it to make sure everything would go smooth both ways. I made a mast crutch to catch the mast as it lowered. I used another 14 foot 2x4 with a Y at the top and several removable support arms a few feet down from top. You can see it in the photo called halfwaydown2. I lower the mast to the top of the crutch and then manually lowered to the lower support arms. I used oak dowels to make the support arms removable; with several sets of holes in the crutch I can position a support arm at any length. Since I don't have a trailer, the mast crutch sits on the ground and is lashed to the rudder gudgeons. at this local, the mast is top heavy once it is resting on the crutch and wants to topple over to ground. Luckily The main sheet kept the butt end of the mast down. If I get a trailer, perhaps I could position the mast crutch farther back, or make a free standing mast crutch that stands on the ground. Not sure, I need to perfect that part of the operation. The system works with ease and is safe, of course safety depends on a lot of things, how you build it and use it being paramount to that. But, one of the advantages of this system is you are on the fore deck in control of what's going on. If a line, stay, shroud, jib furler, needs to be moved a little to keep from snagging you can see and control it. With some systems, folks are using their trailer wench, so they are often down on the ground. You can also stop the lowering or raising at any given spot simply by lower or raise a wench click at a time.It took virtually no strength to raise or lower the mast with the wench. See a diagram of the Standing A-Frame here: http://www.stewartfam.net/arlyn/mrs.html See photos of my Standing A-frame in the photo/project forum, follow realted link Discussion of Standing A-Frame on Catalina site: http://www.catalina25-250.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=6027&SearchTerms=mast+raising