On a JR Corribee that I looked at last year (as far as I remember an original JR not a conversion), the mast was held in position by a sliding sleeve when up but I do not know, how the hinge worked.

I wonder if anyone has made a 'mast raising tabernacle for small boats' according to Arne's design in his files.  I have handed the parts to a welder to put it together for me and look forward to seeing how it works.  I wonder whether some temporary 'stays' would help control the mast as it goes up

Anonymous wrote:

Hi. I have starting working on my mast, a 7m tapered aluminium lampost. It had a fairly rough surface finish and I have now got it quite smooth going from 80 grit up to 800.    I am wondering what to paint it with, partly to avoid staining the sail which is white .  I came across something called nyalic, which is a clear resin, somewhere in the technical forum. Has anyone in the UK used this and know where to get it or maybe there are other recommendations. Thanks

I must have missed this bit - where did you source your lamp post?

Hi again.  I hope it's OK to keep checking in for advice along the way.  I am now working on the mast step and partners.  The mast will pass through the old forehatch aperture, which, once I'd marked a centreline on the deck' I found was not in the middle but 2 cm to starboard!  I have ground all around the area back to the matting and fashioned this 'plug' which is a total of 4 layers of 18mm marine ply.  I plan to glass this in outside and inside with 2 layers of biaxial cloth.  One question I have is will that be enough or should I put some stiffeners across from side to side inside the cabin roof to add more strength?

For the mast step I have removed the floor of the locker and then fashioned to layers of ply to lie one on top of the other which I will again glass in to the hull.  The bottom layer will have a hole to drain any water into the bilges and then I have a 1.5m tube of aluminium which I will epoxy into this arrangement the mast will drop into that.

Does my design seem strong enough or do people think a bit more bracing of the hull and deck is needed around these 2 structures?

Anonymous wrote:

That's looking very nice, Jes.  Are you using white, polyester sail cloth?  If so, I assume you realise that you will have to make a sail cover ...

Yes i am. I plan to make a cover.   After sewing the sail itself  making the cover  should be a breeze .  So far a lot of my sailing has been in Scotland so sun won't be a big problem!  I was looking for a lighter cloth to make the sail with but a lot of them seem to have a waterproof or anti UV coating  on one side and not the other and it seems strange to me to have a sail like that though reading through the forums i think others have used such cloth without a problem.