Dent In mast

[Jon Neely]

Light Sanding the mast today for a coat of fresh paint. Before painting I rubbed the surface looking for any rough parts i missed. About 5'' above the staysail tang I felt a small indention. Not more than 1mm, looks like something fell on the mast at on time. I than eyed the straitness of the spar and sure enough it has a little bend to the mast starting right where the Dent is. How serious is this? Is this the end of the line for this spar or can this just be corrected with rig tuning? How much am I looking for a 43 foot mast for a HC33? Before I paint I want to know if I need to go spar shopping.


Cheers,

Jon

[Brion Toss]

Hello,
Is this a single-spreader rig? If so, any dent is more serious, as it would be in an unsupported area. Also note that the bend you see might not be related to the dent; don't mix correspondence with causality.
Which side of the mast is this dent?
How much area does the dent involve?
Fair leads,
Brion Toss

[Jon Neely]

Single Spreader Brian, here are a few photos hopefully that gives you an idea. Located on STB side bending to STB. About 10'' above inner forestay Tang

[Brion Toss]

Hi again,
Well, not kinked, but the bend is worrisome, and I don't think that you can properly tune the bend out, given the location of the dent. The picture appears to show the mast hooked to the right, is that so? If it is, it doesn't look like a typical mis-tune bend; too localized. That leaves a compression bend as a possibility, with or without the dent as a contributing factor. Or it could be a result of damage when the mast was out before. Either way, this problem has likely been here for a while, which brings us to a classic problem:
If the bend is old, you've been sailing on it without its collapsing, which seems reassuring. But we don't know how close to collapse you have come, or what will happen if you get an extreme load, in a knockdown, for instance.
It's always nice when there's a clear-cut answer to questions like these. In this case all I can say is that I don't like the feel of it. Anyone else?
Fair leads,
Brion Toss

[Joe Henderson]

John,

looks like a standard "Drop one end of the mast off the wall racks" kind of dent and bend to me.

The same thing happens when you are trying to turn the mast over without care on a set of wobbly trestles on a wobbly wooden dock in Malta after having too many beers at lunchtime.

One way to straighten the mast is to tie the mast head down to the aforementioned dock and support the section in a shaped wooded chock over a steel saw horse at the bend-dent uppermost- then lift the bottom of the mast and get the disgruntled owner to remove the trestle while you slowly let the weight of the rest of the section come to bear on the bend.

Repeat until the section is straight and the dent reduced and the owner's wife will talk to you again.

Not that I have personal experience of this kind of butchery, you understand.

The Malcolm Miller one of the tall ships youth trust's schooners was centre punched about 15 feet up her mizzen by the bowsprit end of her sister the Winston Churchill resulting in a dog bowl sized and proportioned dent in the mast wall and a very interesting meeting of the trustees..

I took the mast out in London docks in about 1982, I think and Roger Plum from John Powell Metal Masts used a short Enerpac ram with shaped chocks positioned on a long stick to push the dent out from inside.

He did such a good job of the repair that I could not see any trace of where the the dent when it was finished and that was on a bare aluminium spar.

Good luck,

Joe.