Lost my Mast today

[nies]

I have always found it interesting that Skip puts the bolts upside down, I pondered this for my rudder but decided if the bolts come off upside down the bolts would fall out and the rudder would be gone and decide to leave my bolts right side up because if nuts come off the bolt is still there...................nies

[Bob23]

Interesting circlip tale:
  A few years ago after the fall haulout and while decommisioning my 23, I discovered that the circip for the clevis pin holding the forestay was missing. I have no idea how long I sailed with that thing gone...couldv'e been weeks, days, months- who knows? But you can be sure I check every one of them on a regular basis. Scary.
  Sterling: Glad no one was hurt. It doesn't always end as well as your story.
Bob23

[MacGyver]

Let this be a lesson to everyone, those push pins are NOT RIGHT.

We never suggest a push pin, a positive lock like a clevis pin and circlip is the key. When we put up a mast and that hardware is found (mainly mcgregor sailors......) I replace them with clevis and circlip (we call circlip Speed Rings) and charge the customer, this starts a dialogue due to cost. Normally I explain Liability and issues like this one that happen frequently.

I am sorry that happened to you and understand why you thought it would be okay.

Change to a clevis with speed ring, anything that is easy to do typically isnt very safe to its alternatives......

Mac

[kickingbug1]

   good advice from all,especially mac (he knows). glad no one was hurt (man are you lucky). the rig on a 16 is overbuilt for the sail area but the attachment points can be the weak link. spare no expense buy the best available. again happy all are safe.

[Sterling]

Thanks again for the feedback everyone.  I really appreciate it.  Lesson learned, that is for cer-tain.

At risk of sounding like I'm making this stuff up, I'm telling you the truth that after trailering my boat home this evening and getting it backed into the driveway, we gasped when we saw the frame of the trailer has a huge crack through it.  I drove it about four miles in rush hour traffic to get it home.  The only way to get it out of the water is to take it to a boat ramp. I don't know where along the drive it cracked, but it's hard to believe that it didn't crack all the way through.

The trailer is original. We know it's not in very good shape and have been debating between repairing or replacing it. I think the debate is over now. If that had cracked all the way through on the drive it would have been ugly. Thank you Lord!

Sharkbait will be out of commission for a while now.  That's a bummer because I just received my new Jib.

[Sterling]

It's not easy to see the crack in these photos, but it's just left of the hole where you see the rust.  It's cracked most of the way through.

[hinmo]

One vote for galvanized!

When I bought mine, it was in lower CT and I am in mid-Ma, Cape Cod area. The trailer had a bowed, rusted axle. I pulled her 150+ miles home on the highway, cringing at every little bump and pothole. She made it. First action when I get the boat launched this spring is to replace the axle.

Glad you made it home.

[skip1930]

Yep, time to Saw-Z-All off the springs and axle, hitch, jack, and winch and build a new trailer.
How many years will it last? Don't know.

I do know the trailer will not be 'hot dipped galvanized' unless you buy a commercially made trailer.
Which is the better way to go.

skip.

[Sterling]

An update since I started this post.....

I used the 3M 5200 to bed down new screws into the fiberglass.  The tabernacle was salvageable and with some pounding it bent back in shape.  I'm not concerned about it being weakened.  When you hold one in your hands, you realize it's a stout piece of metal.  I didn't have to bend it much........ There was no damage inside the cabin, so no work to be done there.

I used a small drill bit and drilled out through the pin that holds the front stay.  I then put a ring through the pin after the mast was raised.  I've had her out sailing twice now and everything is looking good.  I will always check everything over before going out now.  I don't want to have that happen again.

The trailer was worse then it appeared in the photos and as it sat for a couple of weeks, the crack widened.  I bought a used Magic Tilt trailer off Craigslist.  The guy wanted $250, but I got it for $100.  The tires are new and the trailer was in great shape except for the axel and springs.  They were rusted out, as if never rinsed after use.  I bought new springs and a new axel at Don's Salvage, cut the old ones off and installed the new.  I used angle iron and bolts to repair the old trailer enough that I could use it to make the journey to put the boat in.  That worked well. Afterwards I canabilized some salvageable parts off the old trailer and then got rid of it.  I still have to install the bunks this weekend.  The boat is tied up to my dock, so no major rush now.

Thanks for all of the advice.  It really helped me tremendously.

[JBC]

Kicking this thread back up for a comment, re: Mast Mishap.  In the past month I've had the joy of partially pulling the screws out of the tabernacle on my 16/III, twice.  Both times this happened while the boat was on its trailer, so no real scary story on the water as was posted here earlier.

In the first case, I lowered the mast to adjust the wind vane.  In doing so, I unclipped the boom vang from the boom, but not from the bottom of the mast where it clips in to a small pad eye fitting screwed into the bottom of the mast slot.  When I started raising the mast again, I didn't notice that the lower vang block had managed to wind up UNDER the mast, so when I got it up to a certain angle, the mast started acting as a perfect lever, resting on that block, to pull up the tabernacle up from the rear screws.  I backed it down and off came the mast completely and I epoxied (as others have suggested here) holes and then re-screwed the tabernacle down again.  Worked fine until Mishap #2.

In the second case, I still don't know what happened, but when arriving at the lake storage space to pick up the boat to go sailing, found my mast cantilevered 45 degrees back toward the port side.  The furling drum pin had popped out from the bow plate and, since that's part of the forestay, the mast fell backwards until the shrouds caught its fall.  Oddly, the circular ring I use with that pin was still resting on the bow fitting (sort of straddling it above the hole), and the pin was on the ground about 5' away.  There had been high winds and storms at the lake for several days, and I suspect the wound-up furling jib, which was rigged with a protective "sock," thrashed around in the high winds enough to unwind the ring.  Either that, or someone came along and purposefully pulled the pin...and left the ring on the bow plate.  The latter doesn't seem likely!

In any case, I re-epoxied the screws and tabernacle (this time it partially pulled up from the front area), and I'm about to try the newest fix when I sail again in a day or two.

I concur with those that cite the boat's design here, that the screws should be able to pull out under these circumstances without further damaging the boat deck.  But I wonder now how many more times I have left to patch up the tabernacle with epoxy before I have to really do some structural remodeling....

Jett

[Craig]

Retaining rings CAN back out of their own accord with enough stress and vibration. Seems unlikely but it does happen. Lost the mast on my old Potter15 when the pin holding the furler fell out after the retainigring somehow backed out. Strangely, as in your situation the ring was on the foredeck but the pin had gone over the side. I now always tape the rings to prevent rotation and backing out.

[JBC]

Very good advice.  Thanks!

[vision]

On my second sail I had the same experience on my 1976 compac 16.  The turnbuckle on the starboard shroud unscrewed and the mast went portside taking out the tabernacle, gooseneck, and ripping the mainsail.  I thought about the bolt thru tabernacle would be best.  But Gerry Hutchins at Compac advised against it.  Followed his advice and banged out the tabernacle, got new bolts' 1/4 inch longer, filled the holes with 3m 5200 and reinstalled the tabernacle.  Got new sails, standing riggin, new gooseneck and wrapped the turnbuckles in seizing wire and taped them. 

[Tim]

Vision and others, I see that a few people chose 5200 as a solution to the problem. Why not use a thickened epoxy mixture? This is my plan...well, unless there is a good reason to use 5200 instead.

Thoughts?

Here is my current situation. I was planing on over drilling the holes (if the core material is dry) and filling them with thickened epoxy, then tapping the holes to fit the screws.

Tim

[Pacman]

I used to sail catamarans that mounted the mast on a peg at the base that allowed the mast to rotate for better sail shape.

That design "sets" the mast base on the peg supported by 3 wires just like our C-16s.

My C-16 now has a simple catamaran-style mast base that I made from a a piece of Ipe wood with a 1/2" stainless bolt. 

The head of the bolt was cut off and the stub was rounded with a grinder.  Then the bolt was threaded into the wood and locked with a nut.

Now, if a shroud does let go, the mast will fall just like it would with a standard tabernacle but it won't damage the boat.

I used the stock screw holes to mount the wood in place of the stock tabernacle so the boat was not altered in any way.  This is a "bolt-on" modification.

This cost about $6.00 to make and has been in use for 10 years now.