Broken fitting holding roller furling to deck

[buddybear]

A fellow boater on our dock pointed out the broken fitting for the roller furling. I had never noticed this and do not know when it happened. It is a schaeffer fitting and I will check into a replacement. Has anyone had a similar situation. I will need to drop the roller furling a few feet to install the new fitting. I have attached the spare jib halyard to the bottom of the plate which holds the roller furling. Since the mast is stepped on the deck and held with shrouds just forward of the mast is this enough safety factor. My basic question is when you do drop the roller furling, what do you do to insure there is no issue with the mast. See picture of broken fitting.

Thanks,
Mark & Joy

 

[buddybear]

After looking at the furling it is fixed at the top and bottom, it is a Schaeffer I look at the manual to see how you can adjust it to put on a new fitting. Anyone done this before?

Thanks,
Mark

 

[BrianRobin]

That's a nasty break! This can be replaced easily, if your mast is keel stepped, deck stepped is not so easy, as you'll have to support your mast with a halyard or something else.

 

[LeslieTroyer]

Better buy a good bottle of scotch for the person bringing it to your attention.

Les

 

[jssailem]

support your mast with a halyard

This is the trick. Attach a halyard or two to the bow (a well secured cleat). Tighten the halyards. These replace the bow shroud that is inside of the furler. Let up on the stern shroud and take up any slack with the halyards This can be done to release all the tension that is on the forward shroud and furler. Tie the furler in place above the pin so that the furler does not slip down. Now just remove the broken fitting and replace.

I have a deck stepped mast. When I had the furler replaced the rigger used halyards attached to two bow cleats to hold the mast in place while the shroud was remove and the new furler installed. This happened in the yard with the boat on stands to do bottom work. It could have just as easily been completed in the water. Because the halyards had a little stretch we used two to secure the mast. Rigger even went up the mast to make the connection for the fore shroud once ready for hoist.

Just take you time and make sure things are tied off secure.

 

[JimInPB]

That little bit of surface rust on the old fitting probably doesn't look like anything that would cause a structural problem, but that is how crevice corrosion finds an open doorway to start working it's way inside the grain structure of the material. It's actually fairly important to stay on top of surface rust on stainless in a salt water environment. I'm not wagging a finger here. I'm just putting the information out there so that people will be aware of the issue. I've been guilty of letting those little things slide sometimes too. In face, I now realize that I have some work to do before my 21 goes back in the water. A few fittings on that boat have some orange stains on them.

If you run into trouble swapping out that part, drop me a note. Pompano isn't all that far from me. My schedule this week should have some flexibility in it.

Jim

 

[BrianRobin]

A loose backstay, allowing the mast to jerk back and forth over the years can cause this as well. You can usually tell how long it's been broken by the crack itself, any bit of 'shiny' indicates a fresh break.

 

[Tom J]

It looks like your spare halyard is attached to the eye on the baseplate for the forestay. I think that is more secure than the bow cleats.

 

[Joe]

Well, it's the first time I've ever hear the forestay or headstay called a "bow shroud".... shrouds are side mounted stays... a stay is a fore and aft mast support.. Anyway, the part you want to replace is called a "toggle"... you just need the size... which will be the diameter of the pin.. One way you can secure the mast is to tie a pendant through you sail's tack and lash it from side to side to the bow cleats, then you can lift/move the drum far enough to remove the old toggle and clip in the new part.... good to go The mast isn't going to fall down.. the lower shrouds will prevent that... it should be a pretty simple fix.