Pontoon Boat Plans Aluminum | Mast management for dummies

Pontoon Boat Plans Aluminum

SPRING HAS SPRUNG and there’s a lot of activity in the boatyards. An important part of it in our northernmost regions is the stepping of masts that were lowered for a winter on the hard. The yachting magazines, keeping up with current events for the benefit of inexperienced boat owners, keep telling of the difficulties of hoisting the stick into the correct position and fastening it in place with the various wire ropes we call stays and shrouds.

Apparently, to step a mast you need you need a small crane, a large fork-lift, or at least an 18-foot-tall A-frame made from 2 x 4s. And as I read, my thoughts drift back to how we did it with such little fuss in the old days.

I had a 28-foot racing sloop called Trapper in those days. I used to raft up with a couple of 25-footers owned by friends, one on each side of my boat. And they would winch my mast up, out of the boat, with their mainsail halyards, the tail-ends of which were formed into loops with bowlines and allowed to slide up my mast until they were stopped at the junction of the mast and the spreaders.

I stood by the butt of my mast as they cranked away, and guided it aft to lie over the stern pulpit. Then my friends lowered away together until the top of the mast rested on the bow pulpit. It was quick and very simple.

Once we’d secured all the rigging and lashed the mast in place, we’d extricate ourselves from the raft-up and motor Trapper to her mooring, where my wife and I would take up our stations, one at each end of the mast, and lower it over the side onto an 11-foot wooden dinghy.

I would then scull the dinghy to a nearby jetty and we’d haul it up off the dinghy and march off with it on our shoulders to our car, where we put the mast on the roof rack and drove it a short way to the yacht club’s spar yard to work on it.

When the mast was ready to go up again, we did the same things in reverse order. It seemed such a simple and logical procedure at the time, well within the capabilities of a couple of reasonably fit adult sailors. We didn’t have to pay hundreds of dollars for a mobile crane. We paid our friends in beer or whisky, and performed the same services for them when they wanted to drop their masts.

I sometimes wonder which path the march of progress is taking. Sometimes it doesn’t seem to be going forward, despite all the new tools at our disposal.

Today’s Thought

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.

— Albert Einstein

Tailpiece

“Is that the sound-effects department?”

“Yes.”

“Good, send me a galloping horse immediately.”

“What for?”

“Well, the script calls for the sound of two coconut shells being clapped together.”

(Drop by every Monday, Wednesday, Friday for a new Mainly about Boats column.)

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Boat Plans And Kits | How to cure mast vibration

Boat Plans And Kits

HAVE YOU EVER experienced one of those times at anchor when a stray puff of wind hits you from abeam, and the mast starts shaking? It’s not a good feeling. I can tell you that from experience. You begin to wonder how on earth the darned mast has managed to keep standing all this time. You begin to wonder how close your mast has been to collapsing, if a little wind from the side can set it dancing like that.

The alarming effect of mast vibration can occur on almost any sailboat, but particularly on those with deck-stepped masts and insufficient fore-and-aft staying. The vibration is caused by wind eddies shedding alternately on either side of the mast, which theoretically oscillates at right angles to the wind.

In practice, nearly all such mast movement occurs when a moderate wind, up to about 15 knots, blows from abeam or thereabouts. When the natural frequency of the mast happens to coincide with the frequency of vibration, the mast can suddenly start shaking quite violently, rattling the whole boat and raising no small amount of alarm among her crew.

You can reduce the possibility of this vibration with an extra stay, such as a wire inner forestay or a removable baby stay. In a pinch, you can use a low-stretch line, made fast to the mast as high as you reach and taken to a bow fitting and hauled taut.

A more certain cure is to hoist in the mast groove a stiff (say 9-oz.) strip of sailcloth at least 4 inches wide. This will break up the regular vortices on the downwind side of the mast. But it’s also pretty certain, of course, that no one will want to go to this trouble.

Another way to improve matters somewhat is to tighten your shrouds and/or stays, thus increasing the downward load on the mast. That will usually reduce the fore-and-aft movement of the mast enough to give you some peace of mind, but I doubt it will help you sleep any better.

Today’s Thought

The wind’s in the east . . . I am always conscious of an uncomfortable sensation when the wind is blowing in the east.

— Dickens, Bleak House

Tailpiece

A man is sitting in a pub having a drink and nibbling peanuts from a bowl on the bar when he hears a voice saying: "You look smart, thats a nice suit. He looks around but the bar is empty. Eventually the barman reappears, and the mystified man tells him what happened. "Oh, that would be the peanuts," says the barman. "Theyre complimentary.

(Drop by every Monday, Wednesday, Friday for a new Mainly about Boats column.)

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Canoe Boat Plans | Mast has been re tuned

Canoe Boat Plans

After Gordie and Matt sorted out our mast bend and rake, we went out for a quick bit of yachting to see how that mainsail looked (summary: not quite right yet)

Daryl W of Camper / Volvo Ocean Race fame joined us for a jaunt around the harbour.  He refrained from commenting on the quality of the foredeck work done by the chap who is usually the driver.  Which was polite.

And, there is an article about Blink in the current Seahorse magazine

PS Im including this from Joerg again, cos its rather good:

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Boat Plans Aluminum | Mast and Rigging in the boat today

Boat Plans Aluminum

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