Haulout & mast off on Tuesday - questions

Richard10002

Richard10002

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Hi,

My first ever haulout on Tuesday, and I've decided to have the mast off to fit a TV aerial, an AIS aerial, and sikaflex a crack in the radar casing.

Any suggestions in preparation for the mast coming off?

My particular concern is how to get the rig tension correct when we step the mast. Should we mark the turnbuckles, or count the threads, or get a tension measurer?

Do i need to take the genoa off the furling gear? Ditto the in mast main?

Any suggestions for wiring which mostly seems to dissappear through deck glands?

Many Thanks

Richard
 
I would speak to the yard or whoever is going to be doing the mast lifting, they will know what they want but from my experience:
Definitely, all wires should be unplugged as the mast will have to be moved around a bit even if it's being stored on the boat.
Some people tension their rig with a rig tension measurer, others just wind it up till it seems tight enough, and tighten it a bit more if it looks slack while sailing. Marking the bottlescrews and making sure thay go back in the right place is far too sensible and obvious. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif
Take the opportunity, if you have time, to clean and grease the bottlescrews, and make sure you hve a full set of replacement split pins or rings, if the people putting the mast back up are not going to supply them.
 
Get your heavy tools kits onboard before the task becomes a marathon climbing exercise.

Don't leave your coat and car keys on board where they will be stranded for an hour during the lift and chocking off.

Life in a boatyard carries a lot of grime on board unless you have some door mats at the bottom and top of the ladder.

I closed my engine intake seacock just before liftout based on the theory that it would prevent the sea water cooling circuit from emptying but maybe that was an imaginary risk.
 
Re: Haulout & mast off on Tuesday - questions

Lots of sensible advice here - especially the point about speaking to the folk who are going to be doing the lift.

Do you have control lines led aft? If so, running messenger lines (2-3mm line, or even sail thread) will make putting it all back together again much easier.

Have you thought about where the mast is going to sit when off the boat. Three (or more) trestles will get the mast off the ground out of the dirt, and make work much easier.
 
Having just had my mast stepped for routine maintenance and to fit a TV aerial I may be able to help a little.

I changed a few blocks up top, this was planned. I ensured that I had plenty of new split pins of various sizes available as well as some new shackles.

I also ensured I had some new rivets available, handy as I had to replace one on my roller reefing, <u>a good reason for taking the genoa off before you unstep the mast.</u>

A well charged drill if you are away from power and some sharp drills. A decent concertina riveter is well worth owning.

Silicon spray to lubricate everything up top.

Though, I was on a timescale, I only had a weekend to complete the work so I needed to get everything up front.

Hope this helps
 
If you are paying by the hour and the yard is not doing all the job for you =then the following....

disconnect all the electrical connections at the base of the mast (either take digital photos or make a drawing so you know what goes where when you re- assemble.

Take of all the sails and stow them.

Take off the boom and secure it on deck.

Loosen all the shrouds and the stays. The mast will wobble slightly but assuming you are in a harbour or marina and there are no waves - no problem. Take out all the pins in the rigging screws so that when the strop comes on the mast to pull it - they are easy to release. (personally I just undo the rigging screws as its quicker and easier than taking the split pins out of the fixings...

The crane will lower a strop which you run around the mast so that it can be hauled up underneath spreaders. once it is there release all the shrouds and stays and whatever is holing the base of the mast to the deck... be really careful as the mast will be top heavy and wil not hang vertically...


.........................

Setting up again is not that difficult.. They will crane the mast on and you will attache all the cleaned and lightly oiled rigging screws and put pins in to secure. You tighten them and the stays just enough to hold the mast up.

Later on when setting up the mast you need somebody on shore - ahead of the boat to tell you when the mast is at right angles to the hull. Then tighten the shrouds and and back stay. Then look up the sail groove of the mast and see where the bend is.. think about it and tighten or possibly slacken each shroud until there is no bend..

The final tension could be done with a cheap meter (or try 'twanging' the rig now and get a feel for how tightly it is set up) go for a sail and put her hard on the wind (not too much wind) and see how slack the lee shrouds are. If they are flopping around then tighten the windward ones and have a go on the other tack... and so on.. there should be a bit of slack.. at the end of all that look up the groove and get rid of the bend which is bound to be there... Equal turns on each rigging screw is useful if not essential...

Remember the guys operating the crane have probably done dozens of masts this season so be guided by them -

Michael
 
Good idea is to tape the threaded part of each bottlescrew above and below. this records the exact position it was in before you undo them, easy then to get the rig back to what it was before.
Dont forget to wire them up with monel wire once you get the rig set up,
Important that the mast is straight and there are masses of info on how to achieve this,
Most sailmakers have a tuning guide on their websites
Good luck
GrahamC
 
Really appreciate the advice so far. I'm going to try and do as much as I can to save time and money, but will let the yard guys do the final touches.

I think the most worrying thing are all the wires which need disconnecting. A few digital photos will hopefully help, and I may try and label them, (although labels will probably get stripped off pulling them through the glands).

Richard
 
Thank Goodness someone got around to suggesting some insulating tape on the bottle screws to mark the positions. Put the tape on the threads above and below the body as you will wind the body away from it when slackening.

When it comes to restepping the mast it may not be vertical on the crane and you may not be able to get all the bottlescrew pins back in. I like to have some short lengths of fine line to tie a screw to it's U bolt or plate if it's not possible to actually pull it down far enough to engage the pin. Or shackles if you can make them work for the fixings.
When the crane is disconnected you can push the mast vertical again and the pins can be slotted in properly. Temporary fixing saves a lot of time.

Also sorting out each shroud is clear to straighten without fouling another or being caught around the spreaders etc saves time and possible kinking of shrouds.
 
Take your point, but not too sure how feasible it will be to "push" the mast into position.. I used to put a Scorpion mast up solo, but this one is pretty tall, and looks bloody heavy.

Will probably let the yard lads sort this bit out, then make the finer adjustments myself.

Funny how all your mates dissappear when it's time to get busy!!

Cheers

Richard
 
Re: Haulout &amp; mast off on Tuesday - questions

It is worth spending a few minutes deciding whether each of your bottle screws turns the same way. If some are upside down, mark them with tape. This avoids an irritating little waste of time (during what is often a stressful exercise) when you find you've been turning one the wrong way.
 
Why?
I always use rings. But then the mast is unstepped every autumn and re-stepped every spring so they aer all checked then. Rings are easier to remove than split pins.

As for releasing the bottle screws... yes, use tape to mark them but only undo one side. It's much easier to get the adjustment right afterwards.
Remove all the sails and the boom but you can probably leave the roller-reefing gear on the forestay and remove it with the mast. Just needs someone to support it while the mast is being lowered. As someone already said, have someone holding the foot of the mast as it might want to cartwheel, not a pretty sight!

And it's much easier than you think /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif)

Good luck!

-steve-
 
Lots of useful advice here. I will try to put it all together in chronological order and add my own comments as well. I hope I don’t leave anything important out!

Remove genoa and boom. I don’t know about the mainsail as I don’t have experience of in mast furling but I think it is OK to leave.

Remove all electrical and VHF cables etc from through the deck, bundle them up neatly and tie them on the mast away from the foot of the mast.

Secure all free ends of running rigging to the mast. I clip them onto the spinnaker pole ring. Then remove all running rigging from the deck blocks/fairleads etc, bundle them together and tie them securely to the mast away from the foot.

You should now just be left with the standing rigging and roller furler (forestay). You only need 4 wires attached to hold the mast. Keep the backstay, forestay and cap shrouds in place and remove the rest. These may include lower shrouds and inner forestay depending on your set –up. Tie these securely to the mast away from the foot. Try and avoid tying them directly to the bare mast (use a rag) as they can have a sawing effect and damage the anodising.

Depending on weather conditions, it is safe to loosen the remaining stays and shrouds but don’t let the mast jerk from side to side as this could stress the fittings.

Tie a very short length of rope to the bottom of the mast to use as a hand grip. Some masts are top heavy and will try to invert just as the crane lifts so it is helpful to have something to hang on to.

The mast is now ready to be removed. Prepare a place to lay it either on the ground or on your boat so you may need some blocks or planks of wood to use as supports.

You will need a length of suitably strong rope to lift the mast. This should be tied in a large bowline around the mast with another bowline at the top to hook onto the crane. The length needs to be such that the crane hook will be clear of the top of the mast with the lower bowline lifting at the spreader point. If you also tie a length of thin line onto the lower bowline, you can use this at deck level to flick the large bowline over obstacles as it slides up the mast

You will need one person on the forestay as roller furling gear is heavy and can easily be bent. This person will need to keep the forestay straight and bring it towards the mast when there is space to do so.

One person will need to hang onto the base of the mast to control this and prevent inversion and one or two people will be needed to remove the rigging screws.

Once the crane has taken the strain (just) you can remove the remaining standing rigging. Try and quickly secure these (not forestay) to the mast with a bungy. Some boats have a bolt that secures the foot of the mast so this would need to be removed too.

You can either unscrew the rigging screws or knock out the clevis pins. Both techniques have advantages and disadvantages. Personally I prefer removing the clevis pins. If the split pins are straightened (not quite) beforehand, these can be quickly pulled out with mole grips. If the rigging is already loose, the clevis pin can then be tapped out with a small screwdriver (but don’t get the screwdriver jammed).

As the mast is lifted, check that loose rigging hasn’t caught on anything. I have seen loose rigging hook onto guardrails as the mast is lifted.

Refitting is the reverse of the above. Make sure you have the thin rope tied to the lower bowline as the lifting rope frequently gets stuck as the crane lowers the hook and without the thin rope to pull on, you may have trouble getting this back down to the deck. Having a large bowline helps.

If you have tied all your rigging to the mast, it should all be in the right place. Where rigging hasn’t been neatly tied, it can end up on the wrong side of the spreaders which can be a nuisance if the crane has already finished. You only need to attach the 4 stays/shrouds so the rest of the rigging can be attached and adjusted after the crane has been dismissed.

I hope this isn’t too complicated. If you are well prepared, it will probably take less time than to read this!

With regard to your electrical cables, you may want to take the opportunity of fitting an easily accessible junction box inside the boat just under the mast. This will allow you to remove all the wires close to the mast so there won’t be a lot to feed through in future.

Getting the rigging correctly adjusted may be more difficult if you have little experience. It may also take a little time for everything to settle back in place so final adjustment is best done under sail. It’s not easy to correctly adjust rigging ashore as the boat inevitable takes up a slightly different shape when sitting on its keel(s) than when it is afloat.
 
Alternatively, for the lifting rope a method I was shown in a french port. A single rope, bowline at the top end for the crane hook, overhand knot to go under the spreaders, run down the mast to be cleated off, and the free end for holding on to prevent a somersault.
 
I have just put my mast back up, the boatyard also suggested a rope looped round the mast just under the spreaders and tied off around the gooseneck so it could not ride up. They looped the strop under this so not all the weight was taken on the underside of spreaders.
 
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