Bent Mast

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Terry
Cruising
Posts: 229
Joined: Thu May 18, 2006 8:56 am
Location: Gwynedd, North Wales

Bent Mast

Post by Terry » Thu Apr 03, 2008 10:02 am

I have a slight bend in my mast which I’m thinking of having a go at correcting. The bend is at the hounds and is out of true by about 1.5 inches to port and a similar amount aft. Does anyone know if this is significant and worth the risk of attacking with chains and car jacks etc? Also, is it possible that the bend aft is meant to be or, at least, less important. The mast is the tapered Holt type.

CHERRY PIE
Cruising
Posts: 143
Joined: Fri Nov 24, 2006 5:04 pm

BENT MAST

Post by CHERRY PIE » Thu Apr 03, 2008 12:15 pm

Hi Terry, I'm wondering if this is fairly common because quite some time ago now I placed a mirror at the bottom of our mast when upright so as to look just how straight the mast track was........we to have a slight bend which I did try to correct by adjusting the stays, however I found that in order to make any difference I would have had to apply to much force so decided in the end that " If it aint broke don't fix it'...anti-fouling this w/e, can't wait to get back on the water. regards Gary
Gary/Ruth & Skipper who used to sail a Swift 18

Terry
Cruising
Posts: 229
Joined: Thu May 18, 2006 8:56 am
Location: Gwynedd, North Wales

Post by Terry » Thu Apr 03, 2008 4:13 pm

Hi Gary
Done it mate! It's been anoying me since I got the boat so when I read about some bloke doing it in PBO I just copied his method. I Padded and chained it down at the point of the bend and carefully jacked up the end a little bit at a time measuring the jack height each time. Straight as a dye now. As for the bend aft, I've decided it doesn't really matter.
Anti-fouled last week and now desperately resisting the temptation to launch too early.
Terry

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