Bent/bowed Mast?

Tony · Post by **Tony** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 1:33 am

Hey y'all,
I'm looked at a Catalina 22 today that looked very promising for the price, then discovered the mast was bowed. Looks like it's due to being improperly stored. Now for the question: Is there any way to fix this? Much of the bend seems to be in the lower section. The owner hasn't sailed the boat in 2 years, and he doesn't seem to know how the mast got bent. I've put a couple of pics at http://www.geocities.com/wilfite/BentMast.html. Take a look and tell me what you think. One thought I had would be to set the mast up across several sawhorses and apply reverse pressure using a sling and comalong or winch to bend it back, but not having done this before I don't know how well it would work. I didn't see any sharp bends in the mast, just a general bow.

What do you think?

Post by **Tim** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 6:13 am

Tony wrote:I'm looked at a Catalina 22 today that looked very promising for the price, then discovered the mast was bowed. Looks like it's due to being improperly stored.

Perhaps, but the way the mast is stored now, the bend is side-to-side rather than up-and-down, so the bend must have been caused by some other storage situation, or something else entirely.

Can you easily bend the mast back into a straight alignment as it is now? If you can, I would opine that it's probably not too much to worry about, and could be removed by tuning. If the mast seems bent in such a way that you can't simply bow it back into shape with an easy push, then I might be a bit more concerned.

I don't know anything about the specific properties of the aluminum used in mast construction, and whether the metal has a memory that prevents it from being easily moved back into shape after sagging into a bow, but I've also never seen a decent mast bend into an irreparable sag just from being stored on horses or similar supports. Something else was probably a factor in the bending of this rig.

Quetzalsailor · Post by **Quetzalsailor** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 11:37 am

Do I not see a sharper kink at the partners?

Most metal is not plastic; it won't sag or droop over time. (Lead roofing or flower pots will, as an example) Metal will plastically deform if you push it past its elastic limit, but it will stay deformed after the load is removed.

Try pushing on this mast and see if there really isn't a bend. It might be just the way it's supported; sitting slightly assymetrically and maybe tied oddly.

I have a couple bent masts for the FD collection. An aluminum FD mast weighs about 19lbs for this 19'10" raceboat so there's lots less thickness to deal with than you'd have on a cruising boat. There's no way that I can see straightening them except by using some sort of a mandrel (solid block or sand??) inside to force the un-bending forces to act on the deformed portion of the section. Failing that, I'm sure I'd bend the adjacent portions and perhaps collapse the section.

Figment · Post by **Figment** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 11:57 am

Back in my beach cat days it was not uncommon for one to lose control of the mast when stepping/unstepping. I recall a number of hobie masts that were made "mostly straight" again via any number of creative processes. Hydraulic jack, come-along, support with two blocks and drive a car over it, etc.

Most of these folks were just trying whatever came to mind as a "hail mary" effort before digging change out of the sofa cushions to fund a new mast. They had nothing to lose.
You're in a different situation. A new mast is worth more than that whole boat, I'd imagine.

Tony · Post by **Tony** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 1:06 pm

Yep, a new mast is. That's why I was wondering about repairing it. The rest of the boat is generally sound, I was about to make an offer when I caught the bend in the mast. No, there's not a kink at the partners, it's an illusion due to the angle of the pic. The mast is really poorly supported on top of the boat, and has been sitting that way for some time. There's a general curve due to the way it's sitting, but there's a bend (not a kink) 6-8 feet from the base of the mast. That's the section I'm concerned about. The bow in the upper part will straighten out when the boat is rigged. I'm not set on this boat, but the mast IS the only reason I didn't come home with it.

Tony · Post by **Tony** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 1:10 pm

Something else was probably a factor in the bending of this rig.

Yea, that's was my first thought. The owner doesn't know anything about it (and seems fairly honest). My guess is maybe his kids, who used the boat at some point, might have done something to it and not said anything.

BrokeCurmudgeon · Post by **BrokeCurmudgeon** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 4:38 pm

I had a similar bend in my Montgomery 12 mast. It was due to the way I stored the mast over the winter with the pressure of a tie down strap pulling the mast downward while the mast was sideways. I was able to straighten it by using a padded sawhorse and gently applying pressure to the bend. It worked fine and has not given me any trouble to date. I see no reason why the same would not work for you. Good luck!

Fred
Waka iti
Pearson Renegade #65
San Francisco Bay

Duncan · Post by **Duncan** » Tue Aug 14, 2007 9:56 am

I noticed the same thing with the mast on my Eastwind (30' X ~5" X~8"), when I stepped it last weekend. Sighting up the sail track, it looked like the top three-four feet were sagging off about 3 inches.

I'm guessing that this is because the yard hung it on a wall (i.e. sideways, with the spreaders up and down), and didn't support it right at the ends. It stayed that way for two years in storage.

This tuned out pretty easily, so I guess I'll wait and see what it looks like when I take it down this fall.

Duncan · Post by **Duncan** » Tue Aug 14, 2007 9:56 am

I noticed the same thing with my mast (30' X ~5" X~8"), when I stepped it last weekend. Sighting up the sail track, it looked like the top three-four feet were sagging off about 3 inches.

I'm guessing that this is because the yard hung it on a wall (i.e. sideways, with the spreaders up and down), and didn't support it right at the ends. It stayed that way for two years in storage.

This tuned out pretty easily, so I guess I'll wait and see what it looks like when I take it down this fall.