Mast Raising
I have a 23' Coronado in FL on the wrong side of a bridge from the Gulf. I put a mast support at the stern rail using aluminum conduit with a plywood vee at the top to get the mast above the horizontal to make starting it up a little easier. I put a 5/16" line permanently installed at the masthead to an eyebolt at the forward end of a 5' long piece of conduit which is attached to the base of the mast, with the 5/16' line adjusted to keep the conduit 90 degrees to the mast. To this same eyebolt is attached a 3 part boom vang( from my 34 Hunter summer boat) attached to the bow near the forestay fitting, and the vang line led back to a snatch block. A line cleated at the stern runs forward, through the block, then back to the cockpit. I pull this line to raise the mast. This arrangement gives me a 6 to 1 advantage an makes raising and lowering so easy that I do it under way rather than at the dock so I don't have the the shrouds, stays and mast in the way when docking. You may not need the extra block if your mast is not too heavy and can run the vang line( or any block and tackle arrangement) directly to the cockpit. If you just want to walk the mast up while pulling on a block and tackle, you could just run a line from the masthead to a tackle attached to the bow and cleat it off when the mast is up. after the forestay is installed,unclip the masthead line from the block and cleat it out of the way.
