Hi everyone-
I recently (last summer) purchased a Hutton 24 sail boat, i live on the water in Sydney, up the Woronora river. the problem i've found is that the mast is too tall to fit under one of the bridges before my house, i'm just wondering if anyone on here might be able to give me an estimate on how much it may cost (labour, parts) to have the mast fitted with a hinge similar to that of a trailer sailer in order for me to get to my house.
Cheers
Some idea how much shorter the mast needs to be will bring forth a few ideas. People sailing in Perth/Fremantle are used to dropping their masts to get out to Fremantle so a search of boats operating there will show details of the hinge employed. If the clearance required is only a couple of feet or so you may get by with a water ballast off one of your halyards to lean the yacht enough for clearance as you motor through.
Hi,
From perth here and though i could give you some advice,
the standard procedure for boats getting under bridges in perth is using two spinnaker poles, attached at the toerail on the same line as the mast tabernacle (the hinge base)
the two spin poles go forward and meet at the forestay, so at this point you have an A frame, without the cross-bar
Attach the forestay to the two spinnaker poles, and then attach a block and tackle to the underside of the poles and the forestay deck fitting.
you can now ease off the mainsheet block, allowing the spinnaker poles to pivot back, lowering your whole rig.
this is the most stable way to lower your rig, although some wiggle will occur from the tabernacle, just put a bloke there and he can reduce it as much as possible
also check out this site, basically gives you images for what i've just said: http://www.skymaze.com.au/Mast%20Lowering%20Systems.html
here's a picture of a tabernacle which would probable cost about $500-$800 to make/install
Most S&S34s have a folding mast, to get under the Swan River bridges, and most owners fold and erect the mast on their own.
Look on the S&S34 website at http://www.topshare.com.au/cgi-bin/SnSForum/YaBB.pl
where there are a few blogs on the matter. The S&S mast is bigger, heavier and taller than yours so their method should work. My S&S34 is one of the few that doesn't have a folding mast.
Hi there guys-
Overwhelming response, your replies have given me a great insight.
In reply to SandS, she is about 2 metres too tall for the bridge.
Thanks for the links and thanks to Ozza925. You're pics are great.
Thanks again guys for all the advice, i'll hopefully get started on it and will post updates of how i've gone.
Cheers
Mark
Darn near every yacht penned on the Swan River has a hinged mast to enable them to get under the Freo bridges. I believe they're quite manageable by 1 person.
