Well CRAP!!

Today was a BEAUTIFUL day for sailing and we tried to take the boat out to the lake to let her fly and had all sorts of issues rigging the boat. Firstly there was a problem where the stanchion wires and the forestay wires got kinda twisted up at the top of the mast which made it impossible to hook everything up to the pins on the hull and bridle. That mast is pretty damn heavy trying to right it up. IS there a trick to it? We were thinking about using the winch that we pull the boat onto the trailer with to pull the mast up. We normally hookup the port and starboard stanchions and then manually raise it until it is vertical enough to hold with one person. Then the other person goes up and connects the forestay.

The real problem came when we got the lines all sorted and hooked up and the mast secured. Then when we tried to raise the mainsail we were carefully feeding it into the slot in the mast and I was pulling on the halyard and all of a sudden it broke when it was about a foot from the top. It has a rope line that is connected to a steel line with an eyelet. That goes up thru the pulleys on the mast top and then down to a splice and then maybe a foot long section of the same steel line that runs into the little twist clip that goes atop the sail to secure it. Well today the line broke right atop that splice piece. What can I do to repair it? I think I can take the end that is split and cut it clean and then take the short piece and cutoff the splice and then splice the two together with one of those aluminum crimp down fittings I have here in the shop. Other than that just going to a strictly rope halyard is all I got here. Any ideas?

I am trying to get the boat all fixed up right here and this operation of raising the mainsail is a real bear, is there a trick to it? Should I wax the slot or the rope side of the sail to make it easier to raise it up? IS there some specific thing to use for this purpose? Sorry for all the newbie questions but gotta start somewhere right... Also is there a Nacra specific forum somewhere? I cannot seem to find one... peace

Pete