Mast down & up in 30 minutes. Any qualifying designs?

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jonjo8

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I am considering buying an inland riverside property with a nearby pontoon. The river is non tidal with just a couple of locks in a 15 mile stretch. The concept of casting off on a summers morning and ghosting up the river as the mist burns off is most appealing, seems Dylan Winters East Coast videos have corrupted my brain.

The problem is I will encounter a low bridge every hour or so. Is there a small yacht design known for its slick mast lowering & raising design?

A small cabin would be good for back to basics style cruising/camping but anything between a Drascombe Lugger and a Cornish Crabber 24 Mk1 would tick my essential boxes.
 
our 18ft seafarer takes about 2 mins to drop the mast, one man operation with no special equipement, about 5 mins to raise at the most, the only thing that needs messing with is the forestay. Mast is light enough to raise by hand, but needs a second person on the bows to stop the roller furler catching on the deck
 
Drascombe Cruiser or Coaster as you want a cabin ( tents available for the Lugger or longboat). Single handed operation, just pull the mast up and clip on the forestay or self reefing jib. Shove it on a trailer, 20 mins to rig and tow it anywhere you like or get the oars out and row around in the shallows.
 
Have you considered fitting an A-frame on the foredeck? I recall seeing them many years ago fitted on both a Kingfisher 20+ and a Hurley 22, yachts where the masts are mounted on a tabernacle. I had one on a Wayfarer, which enabled me to "shoot" Northiam bridge on the Itchen, to reach my back garden where I kept the dinghy. Both down and up times (with two people) about 1 minute.

A PBO article of aound 1970 described the design, but there is a fair amount of information about this method on the internet.

While it can be used with any mast on a tabernacle, if you want frequent and quick mast lowering it is only really possible for yachts up to about 23', where the mast can be safely steadied by hand as it comes down, but at that size you can have a decent little cabin cruiser, not just a dayboat.

P.S. Another option I used with a different boat was a gaff rig, but obviously that is only suitable for bridges above a certain height. And there haven't been any production cruisers with this rig for many years.
 
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jonjo8 said:
I am considering buying an inland riverside property with a nearby pontoon. The river is non tidal with just a couple of locks in a 15 mile stretch. The concept of casting off on a summers morning and ghosting up the river as the mist burns off is most appealing, seems Dylan Winters East Coast videos have corrupted my brain.

The problem is I will encounter a low bridge every hour or so. Is there a small yacht design known for its slick mast lowering & raising design?

A small cabin would be good for back to basics style cruising/camping but anything between a Drascombe Lugger and a Cornish Crabber 24 Mk1 would tick my essential boxes.
Click to expand...

I was on this 80' wherry when it was moored near to our house on the Seine. The owner told me that he sailed with his wife on the Seine and they dropped the mast going under bridges. There was a steam powered windlass in the foc'sle which hauled the mast back up before they lost way.

https://www.google.fr/search?q=Arde...hVC1RQKHePmDeoQ9QEIVDAF#imgrc=GuDm1VqBDParQM:

Rather him than me.
 
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Skip ahead to about 22:10. On the Norfolk Broads, they seem to be able to drop the mast in less than 30 seconds, and get it back up in similar time, all without losing much momentum.

 
You mentioned a Crabber Mk 1; we have one on the Broads, with a curved SS A Frame, It takes me 30 mins to prepare to get the mast down, and perhaps 1.5-2 hours to get it back up & ready to sail. I've done it many times, but it's not quick.
 
Converted a friend's little gaff cutter to this. Swopped the flimsy hinge for a steel tabernackle. Both forestays are on 2:1 tackles. Trails it with everthing set, so a quick shove with his shoulder to start the mast, then haul in and secure the tackles. Hoist the main and gaff halyards and he's off. Both foresails on rollers furlers. It takes more time to release the trailer lashings than rig the boat.

Dudley Dix's Cape Cutter 19 has a tall tabernackle with the boom attached to it, so would lend itself to easy adaptation.
Those Broads boats have very heavy counter weights and slots in the fordeck, not easy to retrofit.
 
My first proper boat was a Hunter Minstrel with sliding gunter rig. The mast pivots in a tabernacle and by using a block on the forestay I could manage it up
or down in a few minutes lowering it into a pair of crutches. That was twenty years ago and I was fitter then.
 
The masts in the KTL clip can be handled very easily because they have a massive counterweight at the foot of the mast. That square block visible on the mast foot at 26.40 is solid lead, and ensures the mast is more or less balanced on the tabernacle. Sailed one, and did this single handed while herself kept the boat under way, and fielded any stray wires or ropes that caught on the way up again. Usually there's a handy billy tackle to control the foot of the mast. The old Wherrymen did it regularly. It was considered very bad form to stop at bridges unless they had a head wind.
 
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oldharry said:
The masts in the KTL clip can be handled very easily because they have a massive counterweight at the foot of the mast.
Click to expand...
I had not considered Broads type designs mainly because if I do buy something with a cabin I hope it would be capable of modest salt water ditch crawling across the Wash and around the bump of East Anglia.

A Coribbee is a design I had overlooked.

Thanks for the contributions all.
 
At the 6:30 mark, watch Dylan quickly take down the mast of The Slug (Mirror Offshore) singlehandedly. I vaguely recall he performed a similar maneuver with Katie L (Hunter Minstrel) in another of his videos, but I haven't been able to find it again.
 
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