So on a rain day I got to doing a little more work on this project.

It seems that the easiest, simplest mast base could be made to use a tapered cone and seat for the mast step. Pretty much the same that I have observed on some A cats. Is there any considerations I should make before adopting this system?

I measured the mast section at ~2.3125 and ~5.625, that was not using calipers but tape measure. I believe this means the HT mast is very similar to an A mast section? Obviously its much heavier.

I need to decide whether to make new rigging, or move the hound on the HT mast. New rigging will be made in either case, but it makes sense to me to try to use something off the shelf. Any thoughts on using a "T" hound?