Norfolk skipper Bern Cuthbertson and four of the original crew were on hand in the Bass and Flinders Centre to set the 14m mast.
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The operation took about two hours.
Two cranes lowered it through the roof, which was removed 10 days ago in readiness for fitting a new roof.
The team of former crew and helpers then set the mast in place below decks, 60cm from the keel.
Two specially-minted 1998 Bass and Flinders commemorative coins were placed beneath the mast.
Rigging and sails which have been folded and stored for almost five years were finally unpacked.
Full rigging of the ship is expected to be complete by tomorrow.
The sloop was lifted into place last October.
The setting of the mast was an emotional moment for veteran Hobart sailor Bern Cuthbertson.
He led the team that constructed the 10.3m huon-pine replica for the re-enactment in 1998 of Flinders' circumnavigation of Tasmania 200 years earlier.
"We've waited five years for this, it's been a long time and at times it's been very frustrating," Mr Cuthbertson, 82, said.
While it languished in a tin shed in George Town, the Norfolk was at the centre of a drawn-out controversy over its permanent home.
Options for locating it at Windmill Pt and Low Head were strongly resisted by Mr Cuthbertson, who maintained it should be in George Town.
The local community formed the Norfolk Trust, which lobbied State and Federal governments for funding assistance for the $850,000 project.
The aim was to house the Norfolk in the old Gaiety Cinema, where it would become the centrepiece of a maritime museum named the Bass and Flinders Centre.
Mr Cuthbertson was not sad to see the ship settled on dry land.
"I always planned it this way. It was always my idea that it should go into a museum and I always wanted it in George Town," he said.
"It belongs here, it is a replica of the boat that discovered the Tamar."
He said building and sailing the sloop on the circumnavigation re-enactment were the highlights of his life.
Moving it on to dry land and finding a permanent home had proved more difficult.
"It was much easier building and sailing it. The trouble started when we brought it ashore," he said.
Not all the crew agreed.
"I'd rather have it in the water," David Evans said. "I tried to talk Bern into it but he wouldn't do it."
Norfolk Trust spokesman Tim Corey, who assisted with setting the mast, was elated yesterday.
"It's been five years and it took a lot of fighting to get it here," Dr Corey said.
"Now it's got a home, a good home and it will be very beautiful."
