From: Martin I Veiner <veiner@juno.com> Subject: TWL: Re: Mast & Boom Pros & Cons To: trawler-world-list@lists.samurai.com Cc: veiner@juno.com >Any comments from people who have already removed their masts, and if so, >what are the trade-offs that you can comment about. Is it that old sailors just feel more comfortable with that stick, or is it really useful? We've not removed our mast and boom, so the best I can do is offer a few reasons why we find it a very useful item. Our boat came with a Montgomery sailing dinghy mounted on the aft cabin top. Greal little boat, but pretty unstable as a shore tender, so we added a Livingston on Weaver davits on the swim step. But we still use the Montgomery, and the mast and boom are the only way to launch and retrieve it. In the unlikely event of a man overboard incident, the boom will be a critical aid to getting the person back on board if they are not capable of climbing up via the swim step under their own power, a real possibility in the cold waters of the Pacifc Northwest. We carry a Lifesling, and as you know, it is best used in conjunction with a lifting device, either a trawler-type boom or the halyard of a sailboat. I replaced the original wood single blocks for our mast and boom system with new composite double and tripple blocks so it is very easy now for even my wife to pick up several hundred pounds with the boom. We don't have a steady sail on our boat, but I've talked to people who do have them, and they say they work quite well. Not nearly as effective as a passive or active stabilizer system, of course, but the sail apparently makes a noticeable difference. We plan to add one at some point in the not-too-distant future. If we were cruising in an area with lots of low bridges, I can see how a traditional mast and boom could be a real annoyance. On the other hand, we've observed several Grand Banks owners in our marina that keep their boats in covered slips. They've fitted their masts with some sort of lift assist pistons (or perhaps they are hydraulic cylinders, although if they are I don't know how they generate the pressure). Anyway , whatever this system is, it makes it very easy to raise and lower the mast, which they have to do every time they take their boats out. We have used the boom for "cargo" work on a couple of occasions when we were taking furniture to some friends who live on a small island. It was much easier to rig a simple sling around the desks and dressers and transfer them to the aft deck with the boom than to try to maneuver these heavy and bulky items up over the rail from the dock. This is not the sort of thing most of us do on a regular basis, if ever, but having the mast and boom certainly made the job easier. Finally, the traditional trawler mast and boom setup lets you fly the ensign from the top of the boom (gaff), which looks nice and gets the flag and flagstaff out of the way of things like lowering and raising a swim-step mounted dinghy. But if you've already got a boom setup of some sort, you've got the man overboard recovery advantage covered, and you say your radar antenna is alreay elevated. So it may be simply a matter of do you like the look of a traditional mast and boom despite the hassle it may give you on the ICW. _______________ C. Marin Faure GB36 "La Perouse" Bellingham, WA