A friend brought his sailboat by for a preparatory daysail last Sunday. We are planing a 3-day voyage from Grand Haven to Saugetuck in two weeks and I wanted some experience with the boat prior to taking it out on Lake Michigan. After the relative ease of mast raising on my very light little Mariner 19 "Grebe", I was not prepared for the operation it would take to step the heavy mast on a Chrysler C22. The C22 is a trailer sailor, but about as big as they come. Heavy, well ballasted, and rigged for adventures further from shore. We spent 3 hours test stepping and lowerering the mast in my driveway and decided against doing it all over at the boat launch without a bit more research... We managed to jury rig a gin pole and mast bridle out of a 2X4 and some spare line, but it was not a perfect system, and was quite nerve racking to raise and lower. Turns out we were very close to figuring it out, but not quite. Apparently the C22 mast can be stepped single-handed with the right experience and equipment. I will say, once everything was rigged, it was a very straightforward operation, perhaps easier even than the Mariner. You're just dealing with four times the weight. With a bit of research and sketching, I look forward to trying this again and actually going sailing in this great boat.
