Broken mast in boatyard from hurricane

[neilsty]

Photos of damage from the recent hurricanes show a lot of boats on their sides with broken masts, primarily seems to be boats on jack stands being blown over enough to come off their stands, then crashing into other boats. For boats in cradles, or pits that did not get blown over, or did not have boats blown into then were there any problems with broken masts. If all sails are removed, boom lashed down etc, were there cases of masts being broken from the strength of the wind without impact from something else - other than flying debris? basically if I am in a cradle do i need to have my mast pulled for hurricane season?

[Jolly Roger]

One of the problems of being on the hard in very strong winds is that the boat is rigidly mounted—or rather, it’s supposed to be. Jack-stands will normally hold a boat upright in the strongest wind if there are enough of them, and the ground is firm.
If the ground is soil, like in my marina, when it becomes totally waterlogged there is a possibility of the stands giving way. We have always had boats tip over for this reason in every hurricane which has passed through over the past six years.
It is an obvious precaution to removed sails and any high windage items, like Biminis, vanes on wind generators, or even radar domes, and naturally any spare halyards. But you would be surprised how many of these things were left on in Irma last month, with roller furling sails and Biminis shredded. I also dropped and lashed my booms, even though we were in the water.
Having no ability to heel in a strong gust a mast and fittings can be subject to extraordinary pressures, but if you are worried about loosing it, I suggest you start thinking of upgrading your rigging, before you even go sailing.

[barnakiel]

You may consider running extra lines to 'lock' the mast. Some masts (often on racing boats, or on cruising boats where the manufacturer opted for finer extrusions) begin to pump heavily in high winds. It is easy to imagine the mast can suffer from such extreme pumping over a couple of hours.

Also, as you have noticed, in case of a hurricane, there may be plenty of flying debris (e.g. sheets of corrugated steel) that can simply do mechanical damage to the mast or to the rigging. Looking at youtube videos I would say this is a very serious threat in places like the West Indies, where there are so many building of less sturdy construction.

Cheers,
b.

[a64pilot]

I can’t imagine a wind load high enough to collapse and externally braced mast if it’s bare.
I’m going with the flying debris, or Boat falling over theory myself.

[neilsty]

Boat is in Antigua, so thankfully no hurricane. I remove all sails, dodger, grill, and basically anything else I can strip off including spinnaker pole. I also lash the boom down. But I leave all my halyards up with the spare line coiled and tied up around the mast. Being a heavy cruising boat the mast has a pretty heavy section, and is stepped on the keel, and bolted down. I tighten the Genoa halyard to the bow, and also add a spare halyard to the end of the boom. Use my dyneema preventer lines to deck pad eyes to lock the boom down, but do not drop it. I leave my back stay loosened to avoid keeping the rig fully loaded. All standing and running rigging has been inspected, and two shrouds with single broken strand in each replaced. Radar dome and hailer left on the mast. I have two spinnaker halyards, a halyard for my passarelle stay sail halyard and pole topping lift which are just clipped to the chain plates to keep them out of the way. Short of removing the mast which will be expensive, anything else I should be doing - probably use these spare halyards? I also make sure with the boat yard that I am not next to a boat on jack stands.