Message 5 of 5
Posted by member Colin on Tuesday 18 October 2022

Hi Iain, Mast stepping is one of those tasks you cannot really ‘overthink’ or ‘underthink’ as getting it right is essential to avoid any damage or embarrassments.

Some sail boat owners will do this regularly, while others may never do this during their ownership of their boat, depending upon circumstances. I would admit to being full of intrepid fear of doing this with my experience on our (non MS boat) boat which due to the tabernacle design on the Hardy, may well be unfounded!
Not looked at the 21 (lovely boats though!) as we have always been interested in the 20/18 variants of the MS Hardy boats as our marina mooring would be length restricted, however, have always been impressed with what I would consider the ‘over-engineering’ of the lovely Hardy boats and fittings.

Sounds to me like you have this ‘sussed’ and if I were doing it, I think I would leave all stays on the rigging to help support the mast as it’s near the top of it’s arc – others may not agree, it’s one of those things. It’s also one of those activities where you could say it’s better to have many ‘hands on deck’ to assist, where others may scoff and say ‘too many cooks’ etc and they happily step the mast (up or down) on their own quite happily – I suspect not but there’s always someone!

Always wondered if this is something that would be better achieved ‘on the hard’ or on the water though, one Hardy 18 MS I was on moved around rather alarmingly on the water compared to our fin keeled 19’ Newbridge, however, that Hardy MS was an early ‘long keel version’ and didn’t benefit from bilge keel plates to help stabilise it in the water! (I suspect a BK boat would be a lot better at mooring while you were moving around it.)
This will probably only be of interest to MS Hardy boat owners, however, I for one and I am sure that there will be many others would be interested in how you fare with this, you suggest doing it then putting something on ‘You-Tube’ or similar which I am certain would benefit others greatly.
Dare I suggest you could do an article for the HOC magazine as I am certain that Marie (the Editor) would like this (being an MS fan herself) with photos and /or link to any video to be included in the splendid club magazine, as this would be of great interest to other Hardy boat owners!
Additionally, any article you could do on your boat renovation would be of interest (and inspiration?) to others?

Just a thought!

Col.

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Message 3 of 5
Posted by member colin on Tuesday 18 October 2022

Only stepped a mast once, many, many years ago on our Newbridge Navigator 19’. We were being careful and were using the extended jib on a Hi-Ab to support the mast at the top as once the shrouds go loose/released, there’s no lateral support. Still managed to break the cast shoe on the aluminium mast base (Doh!) (Probably didn't help that we were working with the fin keeled boat sitting (teetering) on it's launch trolley at quite a height and were trying not to fall off onto the ground)

In fairness, it was a pretty flimsy cast alloy thing! (way too flimsy for the job IMO)

All the MS Hardy’s I have seen have had a fairly substantial stainless steel Tabernacle at the base, which should, in theory, make stepping far, far easier. Trouble is the masts are as long as the boat and have a tendency to ‘wobble around quite a bit’ !
Have a look on 'You-Tube', I believe there are some guys on there that show how they do it….and good luck!!!

Col.

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Message 1 of 5
Posted by member Iain on Monday 17 October 2022

Greetings All, I'm renovating a salvaged 1982 21ft MS.

Has anyone any experience of stepping the mast on this (or similar models).

I've sorted the rigging arrangement out and it's all ready to go but I have yet to raise the mast. It looks like the mast has a gin pole attached to it to aide raising and lowering. My assumption is that this is released from the mast and then set up at a near right angle with the base of the furling forestay attached to it and that a block and tackle (mainsheet perhaps?) is then used to pull the gin post down towards the bow roller until the mast is up and the base of the furling roller can be attached. Stays etc are all then attached (or are some in place for the lift?). Don't want to make any attempt before I'm sure of the process.

TVM in anticipation,

Yours Aye

Iain

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