If, after close inspection, you conclude that the mast is good enough to stand, you may as well begin to scrape it, engaging your chum to lower you down by your gantline. After scraping, use sandpaper until it is polished smooth. Then give it a couple of coats of spar varnish. If the boat has a bowsprit, treat it in the same way. If she carries a topmast, scrape and varnish it and the boom, gaff, spinnaker-boom, boathook and the oars of your dinghy as well as all blocks ashore, wherever convenient.
Next set up your rigging good and taut, taking care to stay the mast perfectly plumb—no rake aft or forward. If you carry a topmast, send it up and stay it in the usual way. Get your boom in position by means of the gooseneck and the crotch; reeve your topping-lift and hook it on to its place at the end of the boom. Get the gaff in place, hook on the throat and peak halyards, and there you are all ready to bend sails.
It is imperative that your vessel, whether she be a cruiser pure and simple or a racer, should have a well cut suit of sails. If it is your intention to treat her to the luxury of a brand new suit, I hope that you placed your order with a responsible sailmaker weeks ago. The winter is the correct time to have your sails made, when the knights of the palm and needle are not so apt to be rushed.
Yacht owners have the habit of procrastinating where sails are concerned, and postpone their orders for new canvas to the very last moment. This causes such a hurry in the loft that large orders are apt to receive the first and best attention of the sailmaker, while the owner of a moderate-sized vessel has to wait the foreman's convenience; whereas, if an order is placed before, say, Christmas, one of the firm is as likely as not to give the matter his personal attention, measure your craft himself, and let the cut and the sit of the sails have the benefit of his own supervision. It is also a fact that the sailmaking firms make it a point to keep their best men at work all the year round, while the mere ordinary workmen are "laid off" when the season closes. The consequence is that the yachtsman who orders his sails in good time has the advantage of the most skillful craftsmen in the market, and he is likely, too, to have better prices quoted him than in the rush of the season, when all hands are hard at it. Therefore, my advice is to take early action and win the best results at the most favorable figure.