wintering on hard , mast up or down

[wazza]

We live in Sweden so keeping the boat in the water all year is not really an option. We have here snow, ice & gales and we do both... that is 2 or 3 years with the mast up then at least 1 season with it down. When up, we loosen the shrouds, we have a cover over the complete boat.. so I guess you can say we certainly sit in the fence

 

[KellysEye]

We leave both mast up (ketch) unless the marina require you to take them down if you haven't got a cradle e.g. Burnham on Crouch. If you want to clean the halyards just use mouse lines, make sure you sew the mouse lines to the halyards.