Un-stepping mast disaster

[curtia]

I know you want to pick a nice day to un-step the mast but back in November 2015 I had run out of time to get my Capri 22 (mid-1990's) out of the water. As usual with poor planning, a day that started out pretty nice got progressively worse. An outboard motor problem and other delays at the ramp led to un-stepping late in the day with increasing wind speeds.

Anyway, as we got the mast to about 45 degrees a gust pushed it out of our control and it toppled to the port side. A drop of about 5'. Thankfully, no one was hurt.

The mast plate held and so did the mast step bolt but the mast foot ripped out of the starboard side hole. While the port hole held the step bolt, the hole was damaged (see photos). The entire mast lay precariously on the hatch cover but we were able to get it up on the mast crutch and knock out the mast bolt at the foot. We then trailer-ed home with a new lesson learned.

How do I go about repairing this? Or do I have to get a new mast?

 

[bushav]

Cut a couple of inches off the mast.

Lane

 

[JSumme]

I would recommend a new mast, or at least get a professional rigger you trust to inspect it and let you know the best course of action. I had a de-masting about 2 miles out in the middle of the Chesapeake with my Hunter 33e because the rigger rigged the jib furler wrong. You certainly don't want to experience something like that. Insurance bought me a new mast and rigging, but 3.5 hours bobbing around in 3 foot chop is no fun!

 

[thinwater]

That sort of thing happens with beach cats all the time. Chop 1 1/2" and redrill. The loads are just not that high on that boat.

 

[njlarry]

What did the rigger do wrong, leave out a cotter pin?

 

[SailAway1]

Trim the bottom and use the mast step shim kit from CD to make up the difference.
http://www.catalinadirect.com/index.cfm/product/1711_18/mast-step-shim-kit-c-22-85.cfm

 

[Capt jgw]

Before cutting the bottom off make sure you have enough room in the turnbuckles to take up the difference. Having to shorten or replace the wires is going to increase the cost of the repair dramatically, maybe to more than your insurance deductible. If its close I'd get the insurance to buy a new mast assuming you have the coverage.
Lacking that you could put a hardwood spacer under the step to make up the length. (Or the shim kit mentioned above).

 

[allen-deckard]

I'm supprised it didn't bend the mast in the middle once it hit after the bolt ripped.

I'm in agreement cut an inch off put an inch of plate under a new mast plate and sail on.

 

[JSumme]

What did the rigger do wrong, leave out a cotter pin?

No, the forestay has to run through the furler, through a cone shaped locking mechanism and then a threaded fitting. Once threaded then the specs say use loktite. It was threaded wrong with no loktite, during use, the furler literally came unscrewed from the bow fitting. Without the forestay, the mast couldn't take the pressure of main and jib under sail in about 15 knot winds. Down it came!

 

[kloudie1]

Get a good aluminum weld shop to weld a bar across the inside to reestablish the hinge hole; use pliers and a careful hammer to straighten .. The load on the base is compression when rigged; the base needs to be flat.. the holes only have to work when raising or lowering the mast. They will normally be loaded toward the top ..
EDIT.. Pull the tabernacle and straighten and re-bed the bolts to keep water from leaking into the deck

 

[CloudDiver]

I'm really surprised any of the comments above suggest that the turnbuckles can take up the difference if you trim the mast... its unsafe to assume they can. Go with SailAway1's post & link, get the shim kit. Cutting off the damage should take off just about 1 inch, which will be made up by the shim so there you don't run the risk of slack in your shrouds/stays.
- Take off your spinnaker pole track. After you trim the mast you'll drill and tap one new hole at the top and move the entire track up by one on the set of holes.
- Use blue painters tape to make a line around the bottom, the tape edge matching the tope edge of the old mast bolt hole. Verify this line is one inch off the bottom (it should be, a tolerance of 1/8" is acceptable). You can also use 2 inch wide painters tape and use a sharpie pen to mark the line.
- Before you cut, measure the old mast bolt hole distance from the bottom edge and mark the center of the new holes above the proposed cut line with a punch. If all is good drill pilot holes, probably ok to drill them out to 5/16" now or you can wait till after the cut.
- Use more painters tape on the top side of the cut to protect the aluminum if you didn't use 2 inch wide tape to begin with. You can cut with a good old fashioned hack-saw or if you are confident in your skills use a metal cot-off wheel on an angle grinder. Either way, just make sure you set up the mast nice and level on some saw horses and clamp down secure... go slow and steady to make a nice cut.
- Clean up the edge with a fine file.
- Install the new shim kit and mast-step plate with bedding compound or butyl tape. The kit will come with a longer bolt and stainless lag screw (if you have a wood compression post, I'm not sure the Capri's have that, may be just two bolts). Pro- Tip... If the trim cut off of the mast ends up being over 1 & 1/8 inch, you can also get the mast-step halyard plate which will take up another 3/16" or so. You have internal halyards so you don't need this plate, but it could come in handy for other things.
- Since you have to reinstall your spinnaker pole track and re-bed it, take the time to inspect all the hardware on your mast. If its never been one before now would be a good time to remove everything, clean it up, and ensure everything is properly bedded. It looks like a those sheaves on your halyard leads have had it... might be a good time to replace them.
- Inspect your standing rigging. If they have been well taken care of you probably have nothing to worry about, but if your were ready to buy a new mast and we can save you that cost, maybe an investment of less than 1/2 that will be money well spent on new standing rigging? I haven't done the math in awhile, but I believe Catalina Direct prices end up about $400 for a complete set of new shrouds/stays for a C-22, so a Capri should be about the same.

 

[Time_Out]

Just curious, why would you need to bed hardware installed on the mast? The top is open, so you won't be able to keep the inside dry.

 

[CloudDiver]

Just curious, why would you need to bed hardware installed on the mast? The top is open, so you won't be able to keep the inside dry.

The purpose of bedding hardware on the mast isn't to keep water out of the mast, its basically to keep water off of areas where stainless touches the aluminum. If you don't introduce water then no electrolyte = no dissimilar metal corrosion. The more proper term is isolating, and when you are treating just the threads of stainless fathers use tef-gel. But when you have flat surfaces of stainless resting on the aluminum you can use Delrin Film, paint the spar, or using bedding compounds/butyl tape the same way you bed anything else. I can speak for the electrical isolation properties of bedding compounds or butyl tape, but any spars that I've seen where this was used to isolate mast fasteners seemed to be working. The majority of all spars I've inspected up close show signs of neglect where re-bedding/isolating isn't a concern and lovely chalky white corrosion is evident... even on mega yachts. I can't be 100% sure of the time window, but I'm willing to bet is you do a fair job of hardware isolation you won't have to worry about it for 5 to 10 years, depending on how harsh your daily environment is. Depending on the age of the boat when buying used, if you have the mast down for whatever reason you should take the time to check and properly isolate all the hardware.

 

[curtia]

Just an update of where I've gotten:
Took my pictures to a weld shop on the mainland in S. Jersey. Doesn't do sailboat masts but clearly knew his metals and mechanical stresses. He felt that the hole for the step bolt and the step bolt itself only come under stress and are needed when unstepping-stepping, like what kloudie1 said.

I'm more concerned about a straight cut at the base of the mast if I should go the route of cutting off 1". So I'm going to figure a way of getting the mast only over to this mainland weld shop. He's going to clean up the edges and weld an aluminum tube across the two holes to re-establish the point of hinging. Couldn't give a price but said "probably more than $100".

Also, I've re-inspected the mast and find no other damage. It isn't bent when viewed lying on the ground, hopefully there's no surprises when rigged.
I'll post some pix of the repair in a month or so. Thanks for all the great thoughts and advice. Appreciate it.

 

[CloudDiver]

Just an update of where I've gotten:
Took my pictures to a weld shop on the mainland in S. Jersey. Doesn't do sailboat masts but clearly knew his metals and mechanical stresses. He felt that the hole for the step bolt and the step bolt itself only come under stress and are needed when unstepping-stepping, like what kloudie1 said.

I'm more concerned about a straight cut at the base of the mast if I should go the route of cutting off 1". So I'm going to figure a way of getting the mast only over to this mainland weld shop. He's going to clean up the edges and weld an aluminum tube across the two holes to re-establish the point of hinging. Couldn't give a price but said "probably more than $100".

Also, I've re-inspected the mast and find no other damage. It isn't bent when viewed lying on the ground, hopefully there's no surprises when rigged.
I'll post some pix of the repair in a month or so. Thanks for all the great thoughts and advice. Appreciate it.

You're over-doing it... The weld repair will end up more expensive than cutting and shimming the mast, plus the hassle of getting your mast to a weld shop. The weld heat will destroy the anodize, so be prepared to paint the lower foot or so of the mast.

 

[The Garbone]

You're over-doing it... The weld repair will end up more expensive than cutting and shimming the mast, plus the hassle of getting your mast to a weld shop. The weld heat will destroy the anodize, so be prepared to paint the lower foot or so of the mast.

You can just apply a liberal amount of alodine to the bad of the mast and forgo painting. We stripped our mast and boom and used it to treat the raw metal. A year on it looks like the day it was applied. It is ugly though.

 

[Joetech]

I use to have a C22 and on my mast both holes on the mast had been ripped out by a previous owner. This actually made it easier to put the mast up. I could put the hinge bolt through the tabernacle and just slide it down. Cutting the mast will throw everything off, shrouds, forestay etc. Do you have enough room on your turnbuckles? Just straighten it out the bent part with pliers. Once the mast is up its all compression.
The Tabernacle is another matter. Take it off, straighten the bent side as best you can. drill out the bolt holes oversize. pour in some epoxy and let cure. Re-drill the holes. I assume they are lag bolts like mine was and not thru drilled with a nut on the inside. Re-bed the tabernacle with something to keep the water out of the deck. Welding would be a waste of $. Cutting off the bottom would lead to serious and costly side effects like having to replace all of the rigging. All of this assumes no other damage to the mast. If your insurance will get up a new mast, go for it. Otherwise, not a total disaster.

 

[Barnacle_Bob]

Curtia: this past summer, I had similar damage to my mast ... And all of my standing rigging was destroyed too, as was my mast plate / tabernacle. I looked at all the options - new mast, used mast, welding, etc. in the end, I worked with a really good rigger to get the repairs completed. He cut an inch or so off the base of the mast, fabricated a solid block of aluminum the same thickness as what was cut-off, fastened the block to the mast, and it works great. I hindsight, I would probably just go with cutting off the damage and using the Catalina Direct mast shim if I had it to do over again. I sail the boat often and I've mostly forgotten that the mast was damaged and repaired.

If interested, I can post photos this weekend.

 

[thetailwind]

Just an FYI, there is a cat 22 mast in annapolis MD. NJ to MD is not that bad.

http://annapolis.craigslist.org/bpo/5470118553.html

 

[Mnorton]

I know this is an old thread but if anyone is still interested here’s a link to check out....