A neat trick to balance your mast

1:07 AM Sat 6 Jun 2009 GMT

'Balancing the rig - vital for smooth cruising' .

Getting in the dinghy and eyeing off your mast is not the most accurate way to ensure that your boat is properly balanced, but balancing the mast is vital for smooth cruising.

UK-Halsey has long been associated with good safety videos, and now they have come up with a short but valuable video on how to balance your mast with a minimum of fuss. The speaker has a very strong American twang, but we won't hold that against him on this occasion. The method is neat, it's easy, and I don't know why I didn't think of it before!

It's important too. Getting your mast balanced will improve the tuning of your boat's rig - this means that the tip of the mast must be centered over the boat. If the rig is off to one side, just a little, your boat will go better on one tack than the other.

You will need to log in with your email address to get this video, just as you may have done with the safety videos previously. However, this only takes a minute and UK-Halsey doesn't do anything you wouldn't like with the information.

To connect to the video, click HERE.

by Nancy Knudsen