Ventus.nu - Elan 210

A small trailerable sailboat like the Elan 210 can be wonderful for solo sailing. But, raising and lovering the mast when rigging the boat after trailer transport was difficult solo. The mast has a hinged base and can be raised with the help of gennaker halyard, but need stabilization as it is raised or lowered. On three persons it's possible to rigg the boat without any extra tools, but I want to be able to do it alone. So I have designed and built a portable "mast crane" that allow me to rigg the boat from trailer transport to sailing alone in around three hours. It's built of wood, the first version (seen in the video below) was over 5 meters tall and the ide was to lift the whole mast of the transport supports and raise it before attaching it to the deck. The system worked good, but the mast crane it self was very heavy and difficult to install alone. So for 2020 season I simple cut down the hight to around 3 meters, and now the system is used different. Now the mast is slided aft on the transport supports (the aft support has a roller on top), until I can attach the hinge at the mast stepping. Them the the "crane" is used to raise the mast using the hinge and a dedicated small winch on the crane it self. The 3 meter hight is sufficient to keep the mast stabilized latterly sufficient for me to handle it alone safely.

The two pictures below show the new version standing on deck ready to lower the mast, and secured for transport