Poor old Chuckles.

Anybody know of a mast for a masthead GK sitting somewhere? Ours is now in two pieces. Snapped above the spreaders 15-20 mins from the finish line at the Round the Island.

We are investigating the new avenue as well with Selden.

Cheers,

Jez,

Chuckles Too (deep keeled motor boat).

It was a bit of a surprise to hear you call in on the RTI with a dismasting, and a bit sad.

We saw you as you came into Cowes.

I do not have any knowledge of spare GK24 masts - I wonder what happened to the GK24 written off by a pilot boat in ? Milford Haven a while back.

I think that new is probably wiser although very expensive compared with the value of the boat: I would expect most masts to be a bit corroded and possibly beginning to crack in places, after 27 to 33 years.

It has been a couple of years since I pulled a pop riveted turning block off Forethought's mast (RTI off Ryde) and discovered that I basically cannot touch any of the other fittings as the holes would become too big if they were cleaned up and the rivets replaced.

The new mast has been ordered from Z spars using their Z265 section with a boom in Z160. Really good service from Z spars so far. We expect it in 2-4 weeks!

Decided against going for the taller rig, longer boom etc.......ho ho.

Bit by bit Chuckles is turning into a much newer boat.

We will have a spare mast foot and various fittings for the Proctor spar and of course a boom. So if anyone needs something please get in touch.

Cheers.

Yes would be hugely useful to understand where / how it failed.

From the photo's looks as though caps & lowers are there, including at the mast head. Baby stay is there, and jib tack still attached.

Mast top came down behind and between spreaders.

So did it just pop through mast pounding forward to windward.

And as for the components - yeah keep them all...never know when someone might need a heel casting or gooseneck etc.

PS Would be interested to learn of all the masthead boats out there, who still has the original Makefast delta U-bolt chainplates ? Decidedly dodgy I reckon.

Cheers,

Keith in Singapore

As far as I can make out the mast snapped exactly in half, just above the spreaders, this is likely to be caused by 29 years of galvanic corrosion between the stainless spreader "saddles" and the mast. There's quite a lot of oxidation there internally.

We'd just done about 20 miles of deep down sailing with a big, full kite swinging from side to side. This was followed by a powered up fetch under no. 1 genoa and full main twisted downtrack and being dumped away. The next part was a beat also in about 18-20 knots with the backstay pulled on hard! I'd noticed that the top of the mast was raking back nicely and depowering the top of the main, but just thought this was a good thing.

When she went, it was not a big gust or anything in particular just that the windward spreader punched into the mast and twisted backwards causing the mats to snap in half and fall to leeward.

It's a way to discover what the lowers do, because with no shrouds, forestay or backstay, the mast stayed there on the lowers and baby stay. Perhaps we should have rigged that jury rig and finished the race.

Cheers,

Jez

We fitted a new "Z" spars 265 mast to our fractional rig two years ago. Great service and no probs over last couple of seasons. Bends nicely to de-power but only advice would be not to rush the new rigging bit. I did and ended up having to replace forestay as got the mast rake way wrong and boat was a dog to windward!!
Also if you go for new sails......Z spars keep drawings!!! <huge round of applause> which removes normal fear of elastic tape measure and dodgy eye sight measuring to black band at top of mast.

I have been thinking that maybe a masthead rig needs backstay runners to stay up all the time when it is bent.

Otherwise there is less to stop the mast folding back than on the fractional rig where the shrouds are attached further aft relative to the mast foot than on the masthead.

Well the new mast went up this weekend. It looks really good, we've given it a test sail but will be racing in earnest this weekend coming.

Still using the Makefast U bolts, they haven't pulled out of the deck just yet but I agree they look dodgy. Maybe a job for the winter.

Chuckles rides again!

Jez

Chuckles Too - GBR 7139

Glad to see SV Chuckles is up and running again - nice recovery....

A final thought on the subject.

Keep all the bits, espcially the heel casting - this may be useful when someone breaks one - either to buy off you, or take some measurements for a new casting to be made.

Cheers,

Keith in Singapore

PS - Runners on a short masthead rig - very debatable - real hassle to use (we put them on fractional Duellist years ago and dumped them after the first time out) - main trimmer got enough to do in a breeze, and with a masthead you'd end up with an inverted mast, and no flattening affect of mast bend in a blow. I reckon the masthead is quite well supported - you can't cater for fatigue / corrosion by adding more wire....