Eleven year old boy raises mast singlehanded on a San Juan 21

Article By Burt Revell

Strong young men have no problem raising a sailboat mast but us retired old duffers need a little help so I set out to construct a mast raising system for my San Juan 21. There are lots of articles on the internet showing the alternative methods and I chose the A-Frame.

A trip to Home Depot for the basic hardware , a trip to West Marine for the blocks and an internet search for inexpensive line to run through the blocks and around the winch put the project in motion.

The A-Frame was constructed of 2x2 pine cut to length as to not hit the bow pulpit. At the top end of the A-Frame were attached a couple of zinc plated straps bent in a vice at the angle needed to make the A. In between these straps is a shorter strap to attach the upper triple block and the jib halyard. The base of the A-frame has a couple more straps attached to the hand rail with large clevis pins. Then baby stays are attached to D-rings mounted on the hand rail EXACTLY in line with the mast hinge pin. These baby stays prevent the mast from swaying sideways during the raising and lowering process.

The bottom triple block is mounted to the bow tang with a line long enough to go through the two triple blocks and back to the cabintop winch . I experimented with single, double and triple blocks to see what mechanical advantage was needed for the eleven year old boy next door to raise the mast singlehanded. The advantage of this system is that you can cleat off the line aft of the winch with the mast in any position and move about the boat to adjust tangled shrouds etc. I also put a bow roller in my mast crutch to easily roll the mast fore and aft.