Not as easy as it looked!
Re: H-25 Mk 1 (1974): This was a major pain in the neck. I took the spar down last November to do some rigging and electrical work on it. I had two (pretty sturdy) high-school guys helping me. I rigged a line from one of the jib halyards forward over a beam of the unfinished building in front of the boat and led it aft through snatch blocks to a winch in the cockpit, since that was the way the spar would come down. We loosened the tabernacle pin and backed off or removed all the wires leaving only the aft lowers and this jib-halyard line holding it, and when we went to actually lean the mast over-- NOTHING HAPPENED. I mean it would NOT COME DOWN. We literally had to physically PUSH the spar down, all the way down to the horizontal. And then the clevis pin in the tabernacle bound up. It had to be unscrewed all the way out, by hand, with the mast binding on it. What a nightmare. I would strongly advise taking the tabernacle pin COMPLETELY out first and replacing it with a smaller-diameter pin just for the lowering and raising operations. It seems that in spite of the vertical slots in the tabernacle, the spar does not have enough clearance to lean all the way down with the pin still in place. At some time during the operation it has to be taken completely out, or the heel of the spar binds on the bottom of the tabernacle fitting and the thing will not budge from there (without forcefully destroying something-- in our case the threads of the pin, which is now trash). I would not of course recommend lowering the mast with no pin there at all, but whilst the spar is still rigged properly and with no load on it, you should be able to take the regular pin all the way out and put something of about 1/4" or so through it (remember to step up the washers' size on each end). It seems the spar was semi-corroded to the SS of the tabernacle fitting just enough that with no load on the rigging (and our timid pushing from 4-5 ft off the deck scarcely counted) it was not inclined to topple over. Judging by the condition of the halyards and electrical wiring I would guess the boat had NEVER been de-rigged before. Be careful, and get plenty of muscle-- but do not be afraid to assume that the mast will have to be strongly encouraged to leave its happy home in the vertical position. Once we got it going, though, the line we used to extend the jib halyard forward over the building (about 6-8 ft off the deck and 12 ft away) and aft to the winch was a lifesaver. I could not figure out how to do it without a gin pole and I'm glad that stupid building was there! Another note-- the spar weights about 60 lbs. Don't overestimate the hassle factor in moving it. My 13-yr-old daughter and I moved it from where we set it down to the cool custom sawhorses I made to support it for further work. She just picked up her end and started going. No sweat. Good luck, Teagle, and let us all know how you make out! JC 2
