Gary (or anyone else who has done this surgery), can you post a picture of the bottom of your mast? I understand the concept and geometry but it seems like a huge amount of metal to cut away on my particular mast. If I remember correctly Gary's hull number is close to mine (648) and it should have the same mast section. I just don’t want to have a “Oh, so THATs how how I shoulda done it.” moment after a chunk of my mast is gone. - Jim M17 “Spirit”
On Mar 29, 2016, at 8:29 AM, David Rifkind <drifkind@acm.org> wrote:
On Mar 29, 2016, at 7:53 AM, Thomas Buzzi <thomaspbuzzi@gmail.com> wrote:
You don't have to take off that much. I ended up cutting back up the mast about a half inch on the sailtrack side and just tapered it to the max width of the mast. Then I eased the sharp aft end of the mast foot to avoid getting bitten by that sharp corner.
The mast is not square as it is. The sail track end (I’d call it the heel) is already tapered, but not all the way to the center of the base. I should do some geometry and try to figure out how little I can cut off.
My worry today is does this make raising the mast harder? The flat base and the “snap” from the pull of the shrouds really helps stabilize it at that critical point when I’m scrambling from the cockpit to the cabin top. I imagine losing control of the mast at that point would be, let’s say, bad.