Art,
If you can rig up two pivot bridles and temporary stays for your mast raising system, there is no reason why you couldn't raise/lower your mast with a furler attached to it, all by your lonesome.
The roller furler can present a problem in that it can flop around on you during the raise/lower process if it's not secured to your Gin Pole.
I tie a Lineman's Rolling Hitch around the furler luff and tie it off to the Gin Pole about 2/3s of the way out on the pole. Then I take the same rope and entrap the luff to the pole and tie a couple of half hitches to the pole and that furler will go right up or come right down with the mast without anyone holding it.
I'm like you. I don't want anyone on that deck when I'm raising or lowering my mast even with the temporary stays in place. The block and tackle or the small boat winch mounted on the Gin Pole does all the work. All you need to do is just keep a close eye on the stays and turnbuckles, watch out for twists and snags while you're operating the lifting system.
If you need additional pics and info Art, just email me direct and I'll send them to you.
sailtrinkka1986@verizon.net
I'm just not sure about how your stays are set up on your boat. My boat is set up so that I can have all my stays connected save the fore stay, and raise or lower the mast. I also have a back stay adjuster which really simplifies this process.
For my forestay, I have a press button quick pin not to be confused with a fast pin. These two pins are different animals all together. I don't trust fast pins. The press button quick pin has the tiny balls at the end that can lock it in place.
I use a wooden crutch shaped gadget that I made up that clamps on to my mast. I call it a mast yoke and it's used for the temporary stays attachment. These things are simple to build and it can be clamped to the mast within reaching distance.
The principle behind the pivot bridles is very simple and once you understand it, you can design it so that your bridles can be put on without having to guess which one goes on the Port or which one is on the Starboard side, or does this one go on so that the longest part of the bridle faces forward or aft? When you make up these bridles you will have spotted the pad eyes on the deck to where the bridles lengths will be even and all the guess work is taken out when you mount them. There is no Starboard or Port bridle. All you do is hook them up because they're both interchangeable.
I have a separate bridle that goes from the end of my Gin Pole to the rings of my pivot bridles. Between these bridles and the Temporary stays which also come off these rings and attach to the mast yoke, my mast has excellent lateral stability and these bridles are tight at all times.
This doesn't mean that you can raise or lower your mast if your boat is leaning to one side, or the wind is blowing hard on the beam while you're do this. If you're boat is leaning to one side, there is a good chance that you can split the bottom of your mast regardless of temporary stays and pivot bridles so the rules stay the same.
What I like about raising/lower from the stern is; Right now my boat is sitting on the trailer in my yard next to the house with the mast up. When I get ready to trailer it down to the club ramp, I'll lower the mast and leave the stays connected and bungeed to the mast. When I get the club I can set the mast up on the trailer or splash the boat and do it in the water at the dock. Either way, it's just a matter of rolling the mast aft, pinning the tabernacle, and setting up the Gin with the bridles.
I'm not sure that you can do that if you raise/lower over the bow. I think that you'd have to flip the mast over and connect the stays. Two of my friends Ray and Jeff do this every year and they don't seem to mind it too much, but they usually do it on the same day and they help each other out at some point in the operation. Ray has an O'Day 26 with triangular plates in his stays for the boom centering bridle. Jeff has an O'Day 25 without the plates. He is able to attach his boom bridle to his turnbuckles and make it work for him albeit some binding. Jeff usually has to man handle the mast a little to get it going up and then it will go up with the mainsheet pulling on the boom used as a Gin Pole. I'm certain that Jeff needs to remove two of his stays before raising/lowering over the bow and Ray does not.
I've used my Gin Pole to raise masts on a Bristol 24, a Tanzer 22, and a Hunter 23 and it worked very well on these boats.
Joe
