From the pic I saw, your gonna have trouble stepping that mast
yourself.
My boat also has that hook on the backstay.

On Fri, 23 Sep 2005 01:17:37 GMT, Shortwave Sportfishing
wrote:


Interesting little feature that I'd never seen before - the back stay
has an additional little clip swaged onto the stay - I imagine it's an
emergency type of deal.

I'm thinking two possibilities. First, and most common, is a topping
lift to hold the boom up when there's no mainsail up.

Second is some type of gismo for stepping the mast. Could be some
sort of block and tackle attaches to that extra clip for pulling up
the mast.

bb

Shortwave Sportfishing wrote:
1 - They are heavy.

Once my youngest boy and his friend got the mast off the Halman, they
put it on some blocks and I looked it over. I need new lines for
almost everything, but the stays look ok.

Interesting little feature that I'd never seen before - the back stay
has an additional little clip swaged onto the stay - I imagine it's an
emergency type of deal.

I'm not at all sure I could raise and lower the mast myself - I'm
going to have to invent something if I'm going that route because I
just tried to lift one end with my good arm and it is heavy.

We also laid out the boat cover and it's quite a deal - all custom
made with zippers, mast home, velcro all over the place - very
impressive.

I'm hoping my shoulder feels better tomorrow so I can work some on the
trailer.

I don't think your mast is much longer than mine, but I'm sure the
diameter is bigger. I can handle my mast quite easily and right now
it's on top of two sawhorses in my back yard. I just drilled a hole in
the masthead casing and installed a shackle to help me raise it
singlehanded, in combination with my 'gin pole' and my 'crutch pole'.

Interesting little feature that I'd never seen before - the back stay
has an additional little clip swaged onto the stay - I imagine it's an
emergency type of deal.

The clip is to hold the boom up when the mainsail is down. One of my
old boats had that arrangement also. Be sure to unclip before raising
the main, otherwise "interesting" things will happen very quickly if
the wind is blowing.