Raising my mast using a pedestal

[captaingregger]

I'm sailing my boat to Cebu later this year for some refit work that will take a year or two.

One of the projects I am planning is to add a huge 20' x 25' hardtop canopy and somehow blend my pilot house into it... haven't figured the pilot house transition part yet. I need to raise the boom a minimum of 34" to make this work. I could always order a new mast but fiscally that wouldn't be sensible. I came up with a number of solutions including a recut of the main and spindle it wraps on to (in-mast furler, raising the worm drive gear up higher in the mast). However, a delivery skipper that I conversing with, who I met while there in Cebu, suggested that I use a pedestal. He said one can be fabricated and I can mount the mast to that. Said he's see it before.

I have dyneema/ Colligo rigging that is reaching the end of it's life so I need to replace the dyneema next year anyway so all this would mean is that I extend the rigging and maybe order a new dyform forestay for the added length. I'm thinking of maybe a 4' pedestal.

Has anyone see this? I can't find any pics of it on the internet.

I have time to figure all this out as this will be the last project we do but I wanted to engage the group on here and see if anyone has an ideas. I will likely relocate the traveler to the canopy or go with a more modern setup (none of the multihulls seem to use travelers anymore, rather use a set of larger blocks and sheets to one point to starboard and port. But all this will require me to re-engineer the setup so that all lines lead to the cockpit.

I want the canopy to fit the boat, not look like an afterthought, and have a tremendous amount of rake to go with it.

Thanks for any advice.

[Benz]

It would be the same concept as a tabernacle (in that it takes the load from the mast and transfers it to the deck {pics of mine on my website/blog}), just engineered to go higher. The challenge is making something strong enough that doesn't look like a clumsy afterthought (guilty). If the budget allows, you could have a really elegant carbon fiber pedestal engineered that matches seamlessly the styling of your boat and of your new canopy.

[captaingregger]

Great info, Ben. I'll check out your blog.

[UNCIVILIZED]

Look at some of the OPEN 50, & OPEN 60 monohulls, as some of them have masts on pedastals. And there are several good writeups on the monohull "Rocket Science" which describe this feature on here. She's a Paul Bieker design, a Riptide 55 & is on his website biekerboats.com Also her owner is a member here TJ D And there's no shortage of discussions on her over on Sailing Anarchy Forums too.

BTW, travelers haven't fallen out of fashion at all, & on multi's they're much more effective than on mono's owing to the boat's width. And many are incorporated into archs on any number of designs. One just needs to get the engineering right.