Un-Stepping Deck Stepped Mast

[brob76]

I have a Pearson 26 that I need to drop the mast on in order to replace a delaminated support beam, rewire, inspect tangs etc. My club has no crane so I need to do this manually. I have been planning to use the guyed A-frame method as described on this site: http://www.catalina27.org/SN-FTP/mastraising.jpg. I've already built and rigged the A-frame as per the instructions but I'm not entirely comfortable with this process. There seem to be a few points weakness such as the joint of the 2x4s. Wondering if anyone has any experience with this method or if there is a better way without the help of a crane. The mast is pretty light (<90 lbs) so I don't imagine that this should be incredibly difficult.

Thanks,

Brian

[tommays]

WE do the same thing BUT use and old mast as a single post on J24 rigs and use a head stay and setup two shrouds going back to the winches to make things tight and stable

I don't care for 2 x 4s as the quality is hit and miss so pick careful

For lifting we use a boom vang with 4:1 and we have 19' of lift as we are keel stepped and need 3' of lift before laying down the mast

The mast is 35 ' long

[imagine2frolic]

I owned a 30ft. Columbia, and my friend in the next slip owned a 26ft. something. We used my mast & halyard to lift off his mast. It was extremely easy to lay the mast down on the finger between us........i2f