The mast fits over a raised deck fitting. All you have to do is remove the shrouds and stays and lift the mast straight up a couple of inches and its off. the trick is to make sure that you have a some way of steadying the mast, a boat yard crane or I made a "A" frame out of 2x4's that I steady with ropes it is high enough to go above the spreaders. I use that to pull the mast up. I had a hard time the first time I took the mast down because the bottom of the mast and the deck fitting had corroded together but after about 20 minutes of pulling and tapping a cursing it came up. You also need to remember to disconnect the wires that run up the mast I only have two for the mast light and they were just twisted together with some electrical tape around them. Don't know if they are all like that but I think that I will change that before I put the boat back in the water. I also put some tape on the threads of the turn buckles so that when I put them back on I have a good idea of how far to tighten them.