Headstay with furler dammage

[Pavel24]

Hello , on top of the mast where the headstay is fixed one side is like "eaten" . I would like to know the best way to fix it . the headstay have rolling furler.

[Snowpetrel]

Interesting. Looks like the pin has pulled down through the aluminum due to load. The bearing stress on aluminum is quite low and in theory this can happen well below the break load of the shroud on many masts, but it isn't common.

It almost looks like the pin is one size smaller than the hole was designed for.

Is the forestay toggle centred on the pin, or has it slid across to one side loading it up more? It's an unusual system and some more photos would be useful.

Prehaps drilling it out to take a larger pin would increase the bearing area and stop it happening again, otherwise doublers would need to be added, Ideally by welding or prehaps by bolting in place.

[Jim Cate]

One could also drill out to clean metal and then epoxy in a bushing to size. The bushing could be aluminium again or even stainless, being careful that the epoxy does a good job of isolation. And of course, one can oversize the pin as Ben suggested, with or without a bushing.

Jim

[Pavel24]

thanks for the advice, the way it's connected is: pin in the middle with spacers the exact size of the hole; on the side where it got damaged, the spacer have moved inside because of the bad length.

I guess I will try to find a bigger spacer and make the holes bigger.

[Snowpetrel]

Originally Posted by Pavel24

thanks for the advice, the way it's connected is: pin in the middle with spacers the exact size of the hole; on the side where it got damaged, the spacer have moved inside because of the bad length.

I guess I will try to find a bigger spacer and make the holes bigger. [emoji2]

Ahh, that makes sense. Looks like there is plenty of meat left in the aluminium fitting. I guess the issue is getting both the holes back into alignment, and a decent bushing made that can't slip.

[skipmac]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

One could also drill out to clean metal and then epoxy in a bushing to size. The bushing could be aluminium again or even stainless, being careful that the epoxy does a good job of isolation. And of course, one can oversize the pin as Ben suggested, with or without a bushing.

Jim

This is how I would do it.