1964 Columbia 26 mast support crack

[CraigL]

Thank you for putting up the album, its an excellent guideline! I guess ill have to get out for a sail before i have some concrete evidence of what is going on, but I appreciate the help very much!

[Bigjim]

I have a Columbia 10.7 and it had major leakage on the chainplates. The rear stays were pulling up through the deck because the water soaked core was starting to disintegrate. I cut open the deck, removed all the rotten wood and rebuilt with new wood and about 10 layers of fiberglass.

You say you don't have any wood core, but you still need some sort of support for the mast. Mine goes down to the keel. So, you may need to improvise a compression post or divert the vertical load to a bulkhead somehow.

The repair you did, as noted, is not correct. The fiberglass will pull away from the gelcoat (probably with it) over time. I've done tons of repairs on my boat now and even when you grind down to the bare glass Epoxy can still fail. I had 4 furring strips pop off after gluing them to the overhead due to flexing and an incomplete bond.

After talking with West System, they advised grinding or sanding down to bare glass until you take all the shiny parts off. Then, wet the surface down with unthickened epoxy before laying any glass. Good luck

[Bigjim]

Looking closely at the profile drawing of the boat, it looks like the mast comes down on the bulkhead right where the door is located. On my 27 foot boat the door to the v-berth was off set so the mast could go down to the keel. You may want to consider building some laminated knees to create an arch support in that doorway. That would help divert the downward forces to the bulkhead better. Loosening the stays is a stopgap measure and may affect your upwind efficiency.