To Unstep or not?

[Juice6576]

Well, winter is almost upon us in the great white north. The travel lift has been busy pulling boats out of the water. Some folks unstep their masts and store them in racks, others leave the mast stepped. Are there any big disadvantages to leaving the mast stepped other than time/cost?

 

[David Foster]

Just time and cost

and no disadvantages, if the standing rigging is left tuned.The mast does need to come down for maintnenace every three to five years.DavidLady Lillie

 

[Ken Palmer]

Depends who you talk to

I would guess that 2/3 of the boats in our marina yard leave the mast up. Those that take them down generally have them secured over the deck to use as a support for a cover.If you leave it up, consider that when the winter winds blow, the boat cannot rock back and forth like it did in the water. This puts more strain on your rigging and you must have a solid support under the boat to keep it on its feet. I loosen the turnbuckles a bit to take some strain off the rigging.If you take it down, you could do more damage to your rigging and furling then by not touching it. You do have the opportunity to inspect your rigging when down and replace wiring and halyards if needed.What do most sailors do at your yard?

 

[AndyK]

Loosen but don't unstep

This is my first year owning a boat so I thought I'd call my Hunter dealer and ask them. They recommend loosening both the upper and lower stays about 3 turns each to reduce the deck strains and take the (small) pre-bend out of the mast. Keep in mind that the extreme cold weather will cause the different metals (steel stays, aluminum mast/spars) to expand and contract at different rates and could add extra stress on the deck. With the boat out of the water and up on jack stands the hull shape will change a little as well. I plan to attach a piece of masking tape to each stay indicating how many turns I backed it off so I don't forget in the spring.

 

[Alan]

Andy,

I would ask your dealer why you need to loosen the shrouds to reduce the tension loading. First, the side loading due to wind will remain the same no matter the shroud tension. If the wind exerts 200#'s of force on the rig, it makes no difference. Further more, a loose rig will increase wear and decrease stability.Second, as the tempature drops during the winter, the aluminum mast will shrink its length far more than the steel shrouds which will automatically reduce rig loading to the hull during layup without making the rig loose.I'm affraid that I would have to question all that this dealer is offering as advice.

 

[Chuck]

rig up storage

Andy,I agree with Alan-as the rig shrinks, the rig will detension-if you loosen it first, you'll have more wear and may endanger the rig in winter storms. In addition, the B&R rig is designed to keep the rig loads off the hull and deck-self contained in the stays and struts. Your dealer-my dealer- hasn't given this advice to anyone else to my knowledge.

 

[AndyK]

Not so loose as to let the mast move

They recommended loosening enough to detension the system some, three turns is not that much, and not so much as to create play in the system. I agree that any part that can move in winter winds will create damage. My concern was putting my boat up with the mast still pre-bent. My B&R rig has about an inch or so of pre-bend. I just looked up the linear expansion coefficients for aluminum and steel. Aluminum is approxmiately twice that of steel so you are correct that on the colder days the mast would probably detension the system enough itself.