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That's my 5/16" forestay pin
I guess this is what a stiff deck and solid mast step gets you.

Gaaaah!

Good thing you found that now!

Just out of curiosity, is that a bronze pin? If so, I wonder if that's how it was able to bend so much without breaking. Wonder what would have happened with a stainless pin -- no bending at all, or.... "Snap!"?

--- Rachel

(with an admitted I-love-bronze bias, but still open to truth :-)

Experimenting with some mast bending are we?

...I wonder if that's how it was able to bend so much without breaking.

All metals flow given enough pressure and time. You could make the pin into a preztel if you were truly motivated and had an exceptionally long lifespan :-) The trick with stainless would be to accomplish the bend over a very very very long time. When you cruise along a rock face and observe the 'layers', do you ever wonder how long it takes to bend the rock like that?

-Britton

I suppose we could file this one as yet another reason to unstep the mast each winter.

(and yeah, I did lay on the backstay pretty hard at the end of the season)

I've seen stainless pins with a similar sort of bend to them. As Britton said, the pins bend like this over a long period of extreme loading.

Mike, how old is that pin?

A couple of years, maybe three. It was straight in May, I assure you.