Mast broke in half

[Gypsea Soul]

Just a little input. My mast snapped and my rigging showed no signs of weakness. A shroud snapped. If your rigging is old replace it.

[hpeer]

Bummer!

What kind of boat and age?

[Gypsea Soul]

39 foot Erickson 1974

[Richard_W]

Oops ... I viewed your profile photos ... the boat looks sad.
Hopefully nobody got hurt ... wishing your boat speedy recovery.

[Steadman Uhlich]

Hello.

A dismasting can be traumatic for a boat and crew.

I appreciate that you started the thread to give some warning to other sailors. Sometimes we can learn from the hard lessons experienced by others and it helps to understand those, even if it happened to another.

I have a few questions and your answers may help others.

1. What were the wind and water conditions (size of seas) when the mast broke? Under what sail (e.g main and genoa)?

2. Was the rigging standard stainless wire?

3. How old was the standing rigging?

4. Do you have an estimate of the cost of replacement of the mast and entire standing rigging, compared to the replacement of just the shrouds+stays?

[Gypsea Soul]

I included a video of the sailing before it happened. We were sailing under jib alone. Probable should of had it reefed a little. Wind was 15 to 20. Seas 5 to 6 The boat is a 1974 and don't know if it is original rigging. As far as cost Not sure yet. I am going to repair the mast and loose a foot. I lost the roller it is destroyed and all the rigging is going to be replaced. I think this is going to set me back in the neighborhood of 7000 to 9000 I have a pic of the shroud that snapped I'll up load. There is no sign of rust

[Gypsea Soul]

Here is the broken shroud

[hpeer]

Ouch!

Try Stay loc or Norseman fittings. A bit more but the cost of rerigging then goes down dramatically. Not really that big a job either.

I did my 33' cutter for under $700US.

[Gypsea Soul]

Picture of broken shroud

[GordMay]

Greetings and welcome aboard the CF, Gypsea Soul.

Sorry for your sad experience; but thanks for sharing.

[Orchidius]

SS, though very corrosion resistant and pretty has some serious drawbacks that don't get nearly as much attention as they should...

First of all it's not fully rust-proof unlike popular belief; it suffers from crevice corrosion. Invisible to the naked eye, but potentially devestating nonetheless. There are types of SS wire that are extremely polished to further reduce this type of corrosion, but they are expensive. Any oxygen deprevation makes this process worse.

Second, SS has very poor metal fatigue capabilities. It becomes brittle after so many load cycles. Every time you tack, the lee shrouds get slack and when you tack again get put under tension again. Do this so many thousand times and they can snap. Again, invisible to the naked eye, but a potential problem for sure.

Lastly the swageless fittings can start to form tiny cracks. They can generally be spotted during proper routine maintenance though. As can improperly swaged terminals if you know what you're looking at.

Norseman/stalock terminals are amazing, and if you have money to spend or plan on keeping the boat for another few decades (insurance companies usually stop covering standing rigging related claims when the shrouds are 10-15 years old). The wire itself is generally only half of the cost of re-rigging, so do the math. Another option is rope standing rigging, or galvanized (that's what I just got, full set all in for 400€). But that's a whole other story...

[Gypsea Soul]

Thanks so much for the info on stainless steel and riggingthat was very informative appreciate it

[George DuBose]

I rerigged Skylark in 2009, she was 36 years old and the rigging was never changed. I had Defender build replacement stays the same diameters. Defender swaged eyes on the upper ends and I installed Sta-Lok eyes on the lower end of all the stays. The thinking was that rain or ice wouldn't enter the upper swages due to gravity. The Sta-Lok fittings were filed with BoatLife caulk.

If one has a vintage boat and isn't sure what the condition of the rigging is, replace it.

My bill from Defender, including all the stays (8), all the Sta-lok fittings and a new Schaefer roller furler was $4800.

One tip: when we cut the stays to the same lengths as the originals, we put together a 50 foot length of 2" PVC pipe to keep the old stay and the new stay parallel and clean.

In the navy, we learned about PM, preventive maintenance. Masts don't usually break on their own. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure...

[Steadman Uhlich]

Gypsea,

I enjoyed the sailing video. It looks like a nice day on the water, and catching the fish was nice.

You attempted to post a photo of the shroud, but it is not visible (to me).

[George DuBose]

I forgot. Included in the $4800 for new stays with swages on one end, new Sta-Lok fittings, NEW bronze and stainless turnbuckles (forgot) and the new Schaefer 2100 roller furler.

If one tells Defender at the beginning of the season, that one will be spending over $5000, the sales people can lower the already low prices.