Mast Rebuild

[Highlander]

What kinda leaf are you smoking their laddie or are you sneaking a wee dram or two of my fine Scotch Whisky let me go check that bottle

That's my flying in the wind I shot the movie while my nephew was at the tiller. He was over from Scotland for summer hockey school up at Wasaga Beach Ont. Can. last year that's when I installed the 4ft bowsprit . this year I finnished the bowsprit bowrail extension the cat walk & bowrail seat & new 26m pedestal wheel steering , one more cockpit portlight on the port side put one in the starboard side last year, installed 2 aftbirth stainless portlights on the outsides, 300ft of electrical wiring , 5 interior lights , rpm gauge , 2 bilge pump switches on the sides of the pedestal removed tiller from my susi 40hp installed wiring harness from eng to pedestal, 12ft eng. control cables & suzuki stainless flush mount eng. control . still ahead 2 auto bilge pumps, bilge vent fan & hoses , new mac keel with wing, new spinnaker & spinnaker crane , tv antenna on mast & new mast / deck light combo better stop here. So you think maybe this guy "me" is mod crazy or just love my wee . I just used my photobucket site to download that pic of the mac26s yawl as I was unable to post it anyother way " block I guess " If you look real close it has "2 masts " my boat only has "1 mast" .

I know you could'na see for the fog Laddie .

Phone rings you pick-up the phone same time as your wife a voice say's is the coast clear SHE SAY'S don't know can't see for the fog guy on the other end hang's up wife comes into the room you say who was that honey she don't know wrong number or maybe .or

so you like the mac 26s yawl

John

[Highlander]

I know I got a sick sense of humor

Hi Dimitri

I have my rig set fairly snug don't have a gauge. But tight enough to induce a small amount of mast bend, my forestays are very tight no sag on my furlers .

Shame on these guy's riding your ass I know most of the info your looking for is in the mod's section but I realize your just looking for a bit of a confidence booster & verbal advise before you bite the bullit & go ahead with your mod nothing like a little bit of feed back first Eh. That way your not second guessing yourself. Thats why it took me so long before I changed my rig to a cutter. Seeked alot of advise first

I posted that pic of a mac 26s cutter rigged yawl just to show you what can be done are 2 masts better than one

Nice looking mod Eh.

John

[Highlander]

some of my mods

http://s78.photobucket.com/albums/j95/m ... 024ASF.flv

[midget]

In case you aren't aware and you add spreader lights, the spreaders are hollow but there are no holes for the light wires to enter the mast. You'll have to drill your own.I used small Hella square ones mounted with electrical pipe straps and they don't look outrageously big on my X boat. Also the spreader mounting dogs(?) at the mast have screws that go completely thru the mast in an X pattern.I bought the Orca LED anchor/steaming light with the strobe option. It takes 3 wires for it's switch. It was very difficult to pull all the wires needed to their point of hook up especially using the tywraps as everyone suggests. With spreader lights and the foredeck light,I would think a PVC tube would be almost impossible!

[Dimitri-2000X-Tampa]

John,

Your boat looks very cool and you are right, I need a little more confidence before changing the design of the standing rigging.

I finally got my new mast yesterday after a 2.5 month wait. (thanks for buying a shiny blue 26M Ed - my mast piggybacked on his boat's ride from the factory). I decided to replace my spreader sockets and upper shrouds to be on the safe side. Got most of the holes drilled today and hope to finish the whole job tomorrow.

Delevi,

I don't know whats going on here, there must be some variation between boats or something. I have my turnbuckle cranked all the way in and I still seem to have a lot of rake...and when the wind gets up over 12 kn or so, I get a lot of weather helm too. If Frank's trig is correct, then raising the hounds 4 inches will reduce 2 degrees of rake.

Chip (or other engineers),

If I separate the forestay attachment from the upper shroud attachment, how much strain does that put on that 4 inches of mast between the two points? And how much can the mast take before it would permanently bend or break?

In addition to raising the forestay off the shrouds by 4 inches, I am contemplating putting a second set of hounds about 6 inches above that to carry the jib block. This is because I only use the jib halyard for the spinnaker anyway so I think it would perform better a bit higher and away from the forestay. But I also use the mast raising system so the same question now exists about loads on the mast when I pull the mast raiser tight. I once estimated that I put 600lbs of tension on the mast raiser although I forget how I reached that number. But now the force will be 10 inches up the mast from the opposing force of the shrouds...same question, will this over stress that 10 inches of mast?

I guess I just don't want to bend any more masts so any data points you guys might think of are appreciated.

[Dimitri-2000X-Tampa]

Midget,

I'll have to look for those spreader lights because you are right, most look too big and awkward. That is the only piece I didn't order yet so I think I'll just run a wire out of the mast and tape it to the spreader so I'll be ready to install one in the future.

What I have decided to do with the electrical work is re-use the masthead (steaming) light connection same as before (since there already is a switch in the panel, etc.) but also add a new four-way through-deck connection for the new wiring. It will be a bit tricky running all the wires, but from the base to the steaming light, it will be a 4-way wire with a common negative and 3 hot wires attached to new switches in the cabin. 1 hot wire will go to the foredeck light which is part of the steaming light assembly, a second wire out just above the spreaders which will be for the future spreader light which I'll use to light up the cockpit, and the last wire will go to the top of the mast for the new anchor light.

[Dimitri-2000X-Tampa]

Well, for posterity, I'll post what I ended up doing. I finally got my new mast back up on my boat this weekend! Took a very long time, thats for sure. 1 month to figure out what mast to get, 2.5 months waiting for delivery from California, another month to get the mast rebuilt...but its better than before with its 3 new lights, mast cap, all new running rigging, and partially new standing rigging.

I ended up putting the forestay attachment 4 inches above the shroud attachment and the spinnaker halyard another 8 inches above that. First thing I noticed is that I wasn't able to attach the stock shrouds (got new uppers). This was with the turnbuckle on the forestay being completely short. I didn't do the trig, but with this amount of rake, the pendant off of the top of the mast was dangling about 4 inches back. Bottom line was that the mast was too straight up to attach the upper shrouds. I had to back the turnbuckle off about a half an inch to get them attached. After doing that, the pendant was dangling about 1 foot back with the additional bend that the upper shrouds added. This will probably be ok, but there is no more adjustment in the shrouds, I may take the turnbuckle back in but there is already 250#of tension on the uppers and I haven't tightened the lowers yet. I'll do that today and that will probably bring the uppers back to 300# where I used to have them.

The lowers seem to have a lot more slack in them so they aren't a problem. Luckily, I had intended on doing this when I put in my adjustable backstay so the extra 8-10 inches needed in the backstay is easily provided by my 4:1 since I put in some extra line initially.

The net result is a much straighter mast than I used to have and with somewhat less bend too (haven't figured that part out yet)...maybe I used to have too much bend before. The litmus test is when I take it out sailing and hopefully have a lot less weather helm than I used to. I used to have my rudders probably 30 degree deflected just to keep it on track with a 15kn wind...that was way too much.

[Frank C]

... Bottom line was that the mast was too straight up to attach the upper shrouds. I had to back the turnbuckle off about a half an inch to get them attached. After doing that, the pendant was dangling about 1 foot back with the additional bend that the upper shrouds added. This will probably be ok, but there is no more adjustment in the shrouds, I may take the turnbuckle back in but there is already 250#of tension on the uppers and I haven't tightened the lowers yet. I'll do that today and that will probably bring the uppers back to 300# where I used to have them. . . .

The net result is a much straighter mast than I used to have and with somewhat less bend too (haven't figured that part out yet)...maybe I used to have too much bend before. The litmus test is when I take it out sailing and hopefully have a lot less weather helm than I used to. I used to have my rudders probably 30 degree deflected just to keep it on track with a 15kn wind...that was way too much.

My shrouds were also left too short when I replaced Roger's verniers with Sta-master adjusters. I cut his vernier channels into spacers, each about 4 inches long, to make up the shortage. My second attempt was a bit more refined cut (bottom pic, fwd). I used cutoff disks on a RotoZip, followed by a rotary file.



Shroud Extenders (thread=Mast Rake)


Yeah, that rudder deflection bothered me too. Mine still has too much in heavy winds. Solved with some aft-centerboard, or tipping the mast another half-degree forward. My mast is 88 degrees off the mast crutch with bootstripe level on the trailer. The reading is identical when afloat.

[Catigale]

Dimitri - dont know if this helps but Ive sailed for three seasons now with my hound 5 inches above the shroud attachments - the reason being to accomodate my quick release lever - no bending or strain issue I can see, and no adverse effect on sailing performance - I am not the best person to observe these however..be warned..

[Dimitri-2000X-Tampa]

Frank, that looks like a good way to extend them. If I had thought about it at the right time, I would have had them make the shrouds a couple inches longer since I just got new uppers. By opening up the turnbuckle a bit and using a lever rig adjuster, I was able to just get it in the last hole in each side. I think that will do, I got about 310# on the uppers but my lowers may be a bit looser than I like since they are about 160 I would guess and I used to have them around 200 I think. I may adjust it again in a few months when the new cables have had some time to break in. I definitely used to have a lot more bend before (makes me wonder if my old spreaders were bent). Btw, I noted that if I gave the backstay a good tug, I could take 100# off of the uppers and a bit off the lowers.

The boat seems to sail pretty well, although there is still a good bit of weather helm, but not as much as before. If I want to straighten the mast any further, I'll have to use extenders or refit with turnbuckles. There wasn't a lot of wind today so it was hard to do a good test, but I seemed to have good speed on beam reaches, I was doing 5-6 mph in about 7-9 mph of wind so that seems respectible. Didn't have a lot of time to test other points of sail. If I guess at the weather helm rudder deflection, it was about 10-15 degrees. Could be more if the wind picks up but still seems to be an improvement.

Steve, if you have stock shrouds, then my guess is you still have a good deal of rake in the mast in order to connect the shrouds. My hounds are 4 inches above the shroud connection and as noted, the outer shrouds just barely got attached in the very last hole.