Mast down for winter haul out?

[garyfdl]

Originally Posted by tarian

A good marina will point the boat to the prevailing wind so the Windage is low

Not sure I'd judge a marina by just that but...

I'd suggest that for most marinas, boats are positioned to make the best use of available space, and not according to prevailing wind.

[barnakiel]

It is super nice to have the mast out. You can then inspect it all very well and you can correct any challenges found.


When the boat is very big, the mast hardly ever goes out every year though. But on a 40 footer you can do so easily.

[Jammer]

My boat is at a marina that has trees. Trees by the parking lot. Trees by the boat ramp. Trees in the storage yard.


For some reason, they really recommend unstepping the mast for the winter. There are a few smaller boats that do not, that are (carefully) parked on trailers or cradles quite close to the boat ramp.


Not mentioned upthread, is that ice load in the winter can contribute to Bad Things.

[John_Trusty]

The marina where my boat lived in the frozen north (Bay City, MI) didn't have those rules. The only time outside-stored boats pulled their masts was when they had a mast project that winter, and thought it was a good time to have it in the barn. There were a few hundred boats stored (well north of Southern Ontario) with their masts up and I never heard of a problem. That said, everyone covered up against snow as that stuff will chew up your decks in a few seasons of micro-leaks and freeze-thaw! For economic sake, I recommend a custom cover. Even though it's a few thousand, it pays off in a few seasons over shrink wrap or cheap tarps. You'll need to keep your mast up for those, and install a 2x6 for the foredeck to provide the ridgepole.

[Redline452]

Redline's mast stays up, and has since 1998 except for two winters (1) when the water level was too high to pass a bridge, and (2) we were planning to take the boat through the Chambly Canal the next spring. The mast is big, heavy, and lots of opportunities for things to get dinged in the up/down process.



In my experience slacking the turnbuckles (I don't always) is as much to account for the shape of the hull changing while on the hard supported in a few spots vs in the water.

[David B]

Originally Posted by Rob S.

For regions where winter haul out is the norm:

I have always had my mast unstepped for winter on the hard. I recently have moved to a larger boat, the annual expense of doing this steep. From looking around marinas in this region (southern Ontario) it looks like maybe a third of the boats unstep mast for winter, the rest just leave them up. The owner manuals stay to unstep on the hard. I understand that if the boat cannot move along with the mast in the wind, then the strain on the mast and its attachment points is thought to be too great.

My question is ... how real is this? Are all the boats I see with their mast up all winter experiencing any actual damage or deterioration?

Any thoughts appreciated, as well as links to previous threads (haven't mastered the forum search function yet)

Un-stepping a mast is a big job on a reasonable sized boat - that means money too (at both ends).

If the boat it properly chocked up, and ideally in a cradle too, then it should not be necessary. We keep ours on the hard in various parts of the Med, and they see some rip-snorter gales there during winter (and summer for that matter, we had a nice 'breeze' of 60 knots through the marina one afternoon in North Africa).

We do of course remove all canvas, and all running rigging etc - no way would I leave the rigging up there to degrade over winter - or worse ......