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After 3 years I discovered that I could leave the baby stays on and can lower and secure the mast. Do you other guys leave them on or take them off and stow them every time you get ready to tow?

I have never removed my baby stays, mast up or down. I don't find they are in the way going forward when the mast is up. They add another hand hold. When they are adjusted right you can move the mast to the bow pulpit without removing them. If I wanted them out of the way I would only slip out the bracket at the bottom and bungee them against the mast. I wouldn't undo them at the top and remove them completely. Knowing me though I would drop the bolt overboard in the process so I just leave them in place. Everyone is used to them being there and I'm sure we would miss them if they weren't there to grab on to.

I also don't remove my gin pole either. I just swing it up against the front of the mast and bungee it just below the boom. I leave the tackle attached to the pole. I have a snap shackle at the base that let's me release it from the deck.

I've attached snapshackles to the top-side of the babystays and therefore
it's very easy/fast to attach or remove the babystays.
juergen

Hello:
I thought about removing my baby stays on long cruises but after seeing how much tension the windward one has when the wind gets up, I decided to leave them on. They don't get in my way much.

dumb question - I don' t have the mast rasing kit for my Mac - but I definatley think it is the way to go - is there any reason why I couldn't make my own - My understanding that it consists of the baby stays, the gin pole (1 1/2 " aluminum pole??) and a block and tackle - is there any reason why I couldn't use the main sheet "block and tackle" for that - my biggest concern is that it would be strong enough - may have to "temporarily" add some additonal line to get it back to the cockpit

Is there any reason why it wouldn't work?


thanks

ken

The stock mainsheet is the same line and blocks used in the mast raising package. The only difference is the mast raising gear doesn't have the cam cleat on the fiddle block like the mainsheet does. You may find that the mainsheet works fine going up as you are winching the line through the cam cleat, but going down might be a problem. Perhaps you could align the blocks so the line won't catch in the cleat. Also, don't rely on that cam cleat to hold the mast part way up if you have to go untangle something. You want to always take the tail of the line from the winch to the aft dock cleat. Cam cleats can slip out to easy if you snag or trip on the line.

The pole is just a pole, but it does need two eye straps through bolted to each other at the front. One for the halyard and one for the raising block. At the mast end it needs a Y shaped set of brackets that attach it to the mast step holes and allow it to pivot up and down.

The baby stays attach with a set of tangs just over 6' up the mast and go down to the flat steel brackets attached to the deck on each side of the mast. They need stay adjusters at the bottom to set the length, and they hook to a slightly over bent L bracket with a retaining bolt. This L bracket slides under the steel bracket on the deck. The stays themselves are swaged wire with thimbles on each end just like the side stays.

You could probably get away with a line setup for the baby stays. The first M's that were shipped did not have wire baby stays. They simply used a piece of line on each side tied from the mast about 6' up to the base of the lifeline staunchions. I would think any low stretch line tied tight would work in their place.

I ran a line through two pieces of 5' PVC, put a clip on each end and in the middle.

The end clips attach to the stanchion bases on either side of the mast and the center clip attaches to the jib halyard - which in turn attaches to the mainsheet tackle.

Whole set up cost me about $15.00