Steped mast, dismasted in slip one week later.

[40grit]

After helping a friend clean up his Olson 25, we re launched her and steped the mast. a week later he gets a phone call from the dock master, your mast has come down. apparently the clean turnbuckle threads and waiting untill next weekend to install cotter pins were no match for a week of slow pulsing of the headstay at the dock, just like not using safety wire on your anchor shackle she just walked off. Being deck steped, down it came. luckly landing in the neighbors rigging to soften the blow. Boy do we feel stupid????

 

[cubfan]

After helping a friend clean up his Olson 25, we re launched her and steped the mast. a week later he gets a phone call from the dock master, your mast has come down. apparently the clean turnbuckle threads and waiting untill next weekend to install cotter pins were no match for a week of slow pulsing of the headstay at the dock, just like not using safety wire on your anchor shackle she just walked off. Being deck steped, down it came. luckly landing in the neighbors rigging to soften the blow. Boy do we feel stupid????

I have to say-yeah that is stupid. I've heard of people doing things like that-and forgetting to put the pin in before they went sailing. Gotta button everything up right. Each time-every time. It is always the nickel parts that kill ya

 

[Cheap Beer]

A few years ago, after a particularly honking race, I'm nursing a beer while standing next to my boat on her trailer. I glance at the forestay tang and see the clevis pin halfway backed out of the toggle, kinda cocked sideways, no longer with a cotter pin. I almost shit my drawers.

 

[mustang__1]

similar to people sailing with the turnbuckles tied together, but the top half of the adjuster is left free to spin.

 

[40grit]

A few years ago, after a particularly honking race, I'm nursing a beer while standing next to my boat on her trailer. I glance at the forestay tang and see the clevis pin halfway backed out of the toggle, kinda cocked sideways, no longer with a cotter pin. I almost shit my drawers.

Dude,,,,,, thats a whole nother crime

My Express 37 when new to me, did an island race without me. The story was, that after down shifting to the #3 and just prior to finishing in the isthmus fan, my crew, heard a loud bang! and rig shake. after searching the boat and looking everything over they couldn't find anything wrong?, and finished the race. the next morning, one of the guys finds the head of a 5/8th bolt in the shower pan! closer inspection found the chainplate interface had poped one of the two bolts holding the entire rig. The deck side bracket elongated by the rig load, stood up 3/8th upward!

The resourceful team, swaped out two of the ten internal chainplate bolts as replacments, and raced home.

 

[Monkey]

Wow, that sucks. I've always thought it was possible in theory, but had never actually heard of undamaged turnbuckles unthreading. I hope the damage wasn't to severe.

 

[40grit]

Wow, that sucks. I've always thought it was possible in theory, but had never actually heard of undamaged turnbuckles unthreading. I hope the damage wasn't to severe.

Thanks, it was a weird one, I had cleaned all the turnbuckels with WD 40 and spun them down halfway, I don't want to mention names, so let's just call him Rex. Promised to come down the next weekend and tune the rig! the steady wave surge did the rest? Probably the combination of little rig tention all the way around with very littl backstay. what a pair of dopes.

Not much was dammaged, the guys headstay behind us caught the initial free fall, the backstay whip and wind chicken did the secondary slowdown, followed by the bounce on the wooden decking.

 

[Jaded]

Damm I forgot my camera. I should of taken some pics before putting the rig back on deck.

 

[Monkey]

Wow, that sucks. I've always thought it was possible in theory, but had never actually heard of undamaged turnbuckles unthreading. I hope the damage wasn't to severe.

Thanks, it was a weird one, I had cleaned all the turnbuckels with WD 40 and spun them down halfway, I don't want to mention names, so let's just call him Rex. Promised to come down the next weekend and tune the rig! the steady wave surge did the rest? Probably the combination of little rig tention all the way around with very littl backstay. what a pair of dopes.

Not much was dammaged, the guys headstay behind us caught the initial free fall, the backstay whip and wind chicken did the secondary slowdown, followed by the bounce on the wooden decking.

I can understand not wanting to name names. My own skipper, who I'll just call The Other Rex, didn't want to bother with the cotter pins on our rig last year because we adjust it so often. I argued that the turnbuckles will "adjust themselves" and he disagreed. I've always ignored him anyway when dealing with the boat, so the pins went in. I'll email him a link to this thread.

I won't even go into the speed pin we use to secure the headstay.

 

[Tasty]

After helping a friend clean up his Olson 25, we re launched her and steped the mast. a week later he gets a phone call from the dock master, your mast has come down. apparently the clean turnbuckle threads and waiting untill next weekend to install cotter pins were no match for a week of slow pulsing of the headstay at the dock, just like not using safety wire on your anchor shackle she just walked off. Being deck steped, down it came. luckly landing in the neighbors rigging to soften the blow. Boy do we feel stupid????

The harsh reality of failing mast stepping 101!

Not to be confused with skin fitting/sea cock 101...

 

[bammiller]

For what it is worth, I have the Brolga turnbuckles on my Etchells; the wire is swaged to a threaded stud and rests in a thrust bearing at the top of the turnbuckle body. It amazes me how the wire turns perhaps 3/4's of a turn on leeward side of the boat when the boat is moving through waves, back and forth.

For those of you who dont pin or lash their turnbuckles; iIt kind of like driving around with a nail in your tire.

Bam Miller

 

[johnsmoke]

I lost one of the forward lowers on the upwind leg of a race, the clevis pin had backed out. We quickly tacked and put a new pin in and finished the race. Come to find out that the Marina had used non stainless cotter pins when they stepped the mast, almost all of them were rusted out. :angry:

 

[waXrules]

Remind me of the boat I saw last summer a few slips down that suddenly seemed to have a lot more mast rake than usual. Walked over for a quick look to see why so much rake, only to find that the forestay was no longer attached to the stem fitting. In what can only be described as one of the stupidest hardware substitutions I've ever seen, the boat owner had decided to remove the clevis pin and install a 2.5" wire lock pin instead.



Mast pumping from waves and wind must have worked the pin enough that it had shifted to one side and popped out of the forestay extension straps. The only thing keeping the mast from coming down completely was the wire lock was caught on the bungy cord that was holding the anchor on the bow roller.

If it wasn't for the other boats around it, I would have just walked away and let nature take its course. The owner probably wouldn't have noticed or ever cared. It was a Mac 26X after all.

 

[Boatzilla]

http://forums.sailinganarchy.com/index.php...mp;hl=wrap+pins

Wrap Pins / Scar Pins - If ya don't know now ya know.

 

[sailone]

I think it is a good idea to use hex nuts also if you are using wrap (fast) pins. It is also a good idea to use round rings for the toggle pin and then tape them off. I have replaced rigs also where the cotter pins in the turnbuckle bodies were undersized so the body still spun.

 

[SockeyeUS119]

I think it is a good idea to use hex nuts also if you are using wrap (fast) pins. It is also a good idea to use round rings for the toggle pin and then tape them off. I have replaced rigs also where the cotter pins in the turnbuckle bodies were undersized so the body still spun.

I've seen that too. the little teeny cotter pins that you can bend with your fingers just get turned inside the body. I replaced the hydraulic mast ram with a large turnbuckle last year and sat there for a bit looking at my handy work a liitle breeze came up and just the bit of mast swaying started to unscrew the thing.

 

[Great Red Shark]

That's better than the tale of "Timber Pete", an aspiring yacht jobber/rigger that was doing some preventative maintenance for a boat owner over at the club's work dock years back & un-pinned the rigging thinking it was a keel-steped mast (just because the boat was a medium-size cruiser). It was not.

Ah, scary moments in rigging. I've had a couple.

Never saw crew-engineering work better than the guys re-bolting the genoa track to the deck on The Shark's very first race up to Kokohead. We'd pulled these itty-bitty fasteners right through the deck, so we tacked (now pointing at Oahu's famous reefs, see USN nav manual) and the Chief, Ned & TommySalami are going at the track with a box of quarter-twenties and fender washers and even have a Makita cordless zinging away while I'm giving them the " ah, I REALLY gotta Tack, guys...."

Good times.

 

[sailone]

The dumbest thing that has ever happened to me when replacing some standing rigging on a deck stepped mast.

The owner of said boat (27' 4knot Shitbox)...I'll call him Rex III insisted to help me re-step his mast so that he could do it next time himself. I began raising the mast with the crane of the local yard. Once in place I began pinning the shrouds. The crane had to be removed in order to do the final shroud so I asked the owner to hold the mast in place (my bad idea) and push forward until I could get it pinned. Right as I was about to put the pin in he said, "you all set", let go of the mast and stepped away. The ensuing crash led to a broken stern pulpit (which I fixed), bent mast (which I replaced) and one really pissed off customer. This was a great lesson to learn the hard way and has led me to a very simple set of rules when re-stepping anything.

 

[Jose Carumba]

Back when I was a dumb teenager I took on the responsibility of hauling and painting my dad's Columbia 22. I created a temporary backstay from the main haltard and tied it off to the cabin top hand rail, then disconnected the backstay so the crane spreader could lift the boat with the mast up. Everything went well until I was applying the last bit of paint when I heard a large crash. I looked out from under the boat to see the mast leaning over the side with the masthead on the pavement. Yeah, the cast masthead crane/sheavebox broke in half. I guess the angle was too tight between the mast and the jury rigged back stay. Luckily I was able to have a local aluminum boat builder repair the crane by carefully welding on cheekplates. I certainly learned a good lesson.