No! The collar must be larger so you can get the mast in. Once in, you wedge it.
A lot of folk are very sloppy about their wedges, using any old splits and pounded in not even touching each other and often at such a steep slope that they only touch the collar at a small point which, if above the deck level, will just distort the collar.
Others like the new pour-in-place cast collar substitutes. I despise these but you can make them work with a wooden mast after a fashion if you slightly taper the collar inside. If you don't, when you go to strike the mast it will bind and the crane operator will be pulling the whole boat out on her stick.
Before you step the mast, mark in the area of the partners dead center forward and dead center aft with lines from a nudge above the deck level to down below the partners so you'll see those lines from above and below.
For your first time, get the stick up and stayed but not too tightly so you can see if the mast really comes up the center of the hole or is off a little. It's not actually bad for a wooden mast to put a little stress here so unless things are way off due to the hole being places a bit wrong (YES! That happens, with holes off a half inch or more one side or the other.) you can make the wedges symetrical, at least side to side. It's quite normal for things to not be symetrical fore and aft.
Measure the gap at intervals of between 1" to 2" depending on the wedge size you'll be making at top and bottom to see if there's taper and how it works. Then you're ready to make the wedges which could be sloped from a nudge over 1/16" small at the bottom to a bit more wide at the top. The wedges can be most any not too crushable wood but something with a really tight endgrain, like black locust, is really finastkind.
You'll want to hollow curve the inside and outside faces to fit, make the widest (oversized) part of the slope about 1/2" higher than a full fit, and put a lip on the outside so the wedge can't fall through the hole. As you put wedges in, start with your keystones, as it were, fore and aft centerline and then athwartships centered. Just drop them in, no pounding yet. Fill in till all your wedges are in and you have a nice fit around, only little gaps between wedges. Now you can gently tap to get them all happily firm.
Now number the wedges so you can get them right next year.
Since they are tapered wedges, just a bit of a tap from under will ease them out when it's time to strike the stick.
First time's the right time to number the wedges so you can get them in right the next time.
Nicely made wedges are a sign that the woodenboat owner loves his wooden mast.
G'luck
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