Damaged Mastendr Repair

[Eagleye]

When we purchased our Eclipse one of the reasons that we got a bargain deal was that the mast had some major damage.  At least that was the assessment that the broker speculated.   The PO allegedly attempted to drop the mast without sliding the gooseneck slug and sail slugs to the lower section of the Mastendr hinge point.  That is a real bad thing.  As the mast came down the gooseneck slug just ripped itself out of the sail slot leaving a gaping hole with shards of aluminum extending out. In the photo I had already removed the shrapnel.  Except for the shrapnel it kind of looked like there was supposed to be a slot gate there but Glenn verified that there is none on the Eclipse.   The opposite side of the slot also was split and bent outward.









BTW, that black, gooey, sticky stuff you see in the sail slot is what is left over from the white grease that the PO had put in there to help get the slugs to slide.  It didn't work.  I cleaned out the grease with solvent and later used SailKote to lubricate the slot and slugs.

Back to the repair,... I ground away the jagged edges and machined a bevel on all the surfaces that the slugs would come in contact with. The bent areas I formed back into its original shape.  Finally I polished the entire area until all the surfaces were smooth. 









Now to support the damaged area I fabricated two strips of SST , ¾" X 6" X  3/16"  which were beveled on the inside edges and drilled  for ¼" FHMS. 









I aligned the strips and drilled through the mast and fasted them with the SST hardware.









The bolts were positioned so the flat side of the nuts pressed up against the slot on the inside of the mast mostly for added strength but also so it would not be necessary to get a wrench inside the mast.  I couple of the nylok nuts did want to be stubborn and turn anyway.







Being a newbie I have nothing to compare it with but it seems to work quite well.  The slugs only snag just a bit when the wind yanks the sails to one side but I don't know if that would occur on an undamaged Mastendr. 

Dropping the mast without getting everything in order first seems absurd but who knows what the situation might have been for the PO.  I can't imagine this happening to anyone else but if it does I hope this would be helpful.

Respectfully,
Allen

[MacGyver]

Great job Allen,

This is exactly how we fix this issue at the marina. I just did a mast on a Tall Rig Catalina 30, similarly, and oddly enough have the same issue with the sail slides. My replacement parts that I made even had a bent piece to go into the mast track to somewhat replicate it, but they arent working good enough.
A idea I had was to file each sail slide on the top edge so that it might pass that section easier. His issues were higher up, and were from a PO doing a really crappy retro fit job where he moved the fixed gooseneck several times...... a real hack job.

The only other option is to replace the mast, which I am sure for you or him would not be very cost efficient.

Great job on the repair, and nice work!

Mac

[Glenn Basore]

Very nice work Allen.

Glenn b.