The first thing that i felt the boat desperately needed, besides a name, was a mast crutch. Part of this is my incessant need to tinker and fiddle with things like i like to do. Part of it is to make the boat setup as simplified and safe a process as possible for either myself or Amber or Austin or whoever may happen to be aboard. Stepping the mast before the mast crutch was a royal pain. It took two people very precariously guiding the mast backwards or worse yet sliding it along the folded up Bimini top, and have you seen the prices to replace those?! From my research I knew the boat had originally came with something like this but they are ridiculously expensive to replace and hard to find. So I built my own.
A trip to the Fruitland Park Trailers, 55 dollars, a metal pole laying around the house, and my Hobart welder yielded this mast crutch. There was already the bracketing on the transom for the factory crutch so I just used a pole of similar diameter that would fit. I measured the height so that while in transport the mast would ride a few inches above the Bimini. After undoing a few straps you can roll the mast along the crutch's roller to pin the mast in the block. Then its just a matter of hooking up the gin pole, the main sheet and hauling the mast upright.
With a little practice I should be able to do this single handed if necessary. It is helpful to have someone watching the spreaders and side-stays as you roll the mast back to get the pin in the base of the mast just so things don't get tangled. When we took it out to Lake Eustis it worked beautifully. More on that trip soon. Stay tuned!
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