From my limited experiance at a mere 90 kilos its not the weight of the mast /sail that is the problem, but the stiction of the sail to the water. Dead smooth water, almost no wind, my Stealth is a bitch to right, about 5 knots of wind and the smallest of a ripple and its a doddle. Any clues on how to break this stiction as the mast comes up to about 300mm from the water and then the sail just seems glued to the water.

Different idea here, in landrover pull me out of the mud situations we all use a great big bunchy line ie little baby 4 wheel drive sets off as fast as he can with very short bungy line getting tighter, the bungy finally says enough is enough and then stops the baby 4 x 4 but at this point the pulling power is about 4 times that of the baby 4 x 4 on its own. Now we could use the same philosphy here. Tie a bungy off and then lean back gaining momentum until you stop just short of the water, I bet the pulling power is probably twice that of just leaning on a rope. Has anybody tried it <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />