That mast is definitely mounted upside down - look at the mast base mounted above the pulpit. I agree, a royal pain to lift and rotate 180 degrees. So much easier to unpin spreaders.
Really, to all of you. I think this is very strange - I can think of absolutely no GOOD reason to put the mast down like that and I have never ever had my mast go upside down or have the furler go upside down or anything like that. I have no idea why any of that would happen and the picture of the boat with the spreaders upside down is psycho - that's just wrong.
The mast base plate spins freely on the mast, it can face any direction easily, and so doesn't give any indication of the direction the mast is facing. The steaming light does, though.
Short of removing the spreaders, rotating the mast 180 degrees, and re-inserting the spreaders for trailering, I think it would be a whole lot of trouble to lift the entire mast high enough to clear the spreaders so that you could rotate the mast, and wind (or tangle) the stays, and put it back down again.
Maybe this was done to wind the stays up to take out the slack so they don't rub on the gel coat during trailering(?)
It looks, from the padding on the spreaders, that it is a concern.
I put Pelicans on all my lifelines which makes getting on the boat, trailering, and putting a dinghy. On foredeck all EZPZ. Since I had three reasons for the mod plus it let me use my Dremel tool, it happened.
Catigale wrote:I put Pelicans on all my lifelines which makes getting on the boat, trailering, and putting a dinghy. On foredeck all EZPZ. Since I had three reasons for the mod plus it let me use my Dremel tool, it happened.
Yes, this is the best way, those charlie the pelican hooks work real good. I went one step further: on 'boat' when the pelican hooks are released you can then also slide the upper 2 thirds of the rear stanchions right off the boat and let them hang to the ground (the rear stanchions have sleeves inside of them) - this way the spreaders don't even touch the stanchions when rolling the mast. I leave the stanchions off when trailering too so when i get to the ramp the mast is ready to roll. When trailering I just lay them down between the winch and the deck hatch and they stay put on any bumpy road. When i get to the ramp I just toss them overboard so they are out of the way. After the mast is up I just pull them back up by their cable and slide them right back onto the stanchion sleeve. It's eliminated all stoppings when rolling the mast and I also don't need to lift the mast up high anymore to get over stuff. I usually have the mast up within 10 minutes of getting to the boat launch. (It's all the OTHER rigging that takes me so long!)