Excessive mast rake (with pic)?

[irati]

Hi everyone,

I've recently bought a Halcyon 27 (cruiser not racer, moderate/heavy displacement, long keel, sloop rigged).

The mast is deck stepped, and it is not resting flat on top of its step, but leaning backwards.

I have tried easing the backstay and tightening the forestay as much as possible, but that did not made any noticeable difference.

I have attached a picture to help illustrate the issue. The measuring tape shows a gap of about 0.5cm (0.2 inches) on the forward section:

How much of a problem could this be? Is it something that is normal/acceptable, or does it have to be sorted out as quickly as possible?

Many thanks !

 

[dmmbruce]

Doesn't look good!

Who made the mast? Ask them.

Mike

 

[sarabande]

what about the shrouds port and starboard ? If the chain plates are aft of the mast step, they could be holding the mast back.

 

[ostell]

Is the foot in the correct position? ie it looks as though it could be moved to the left in the picture by a fair amount

 

[VicS]

Why can't you correct it with the fore-stay and back-stay?

Run out of adjustment on both. ??

The back-stay can be lengthened with a toggle or toggles if necessary but if you have run out of adjustment on the fore-stay you have a bit of a problem although perhaps you could fit a different, ie shorter, bottle screw.

( I take it the lower shrouds are not a problem)

 

[KenMcCulloch]

It also looks, from the wear on the mast step, as though it has been like that for a while. Doesn't look too good, I would not be surprised to see cracks developing in one or both of the castings eventually. Some mast heel fittings have a slight rocker to allow the possibility of some adjustment to rake but this one certainly does not. If the spreaders are swept back at all then cap shroud tension will tend to pull the mast back and bend it.

 

[TQA]

Bit of lateral thinking. Is there any chance that the the mast step area is collapsing.

 

[VicS]

Is the foot in the correct position? ie it looks as though it could be moved to the left in the picture by a fair amount

Scaling of the photo and doing a few sums suggests you'd have to move the foot back by something around 20" in order to close that gap!

 

[Sandyman]

Bit of lateral thinking. Is there any chance that the the mast step area is collapsing.

My first thought as well. Did you have a survey done before purchase ? This should have been picked up.

 

[sailorman]

My first thought as well. Did you have a survey done before purchase ? This should have been picked up.

looks like its happened over a long period as the aft of the mast step has a groove worn into it where the mast base fitting has rubbed

 

[30boat]

Your mast step is the same as the one I had before I replaced my mast.It has a central notch where the mast heel is located and should work as an hinge but your mast heel is straight and prevents it.The point loading you're getting is not good for the casting so you should shorten your forestay with a swageless terminal,Staloc or similar,and extend the backstay. That'll correct the geometry.

 

[savageseadog]

Hi everyone,

I've recently bought a Halcyon 27 (cruiser not racer, moderate/heavy displacement, long keel, sloop rigged).

The mast is deck stepped, and it is not resting flat on top of its step, but leaning backwards.

I have tried easing the backstay and tightening the forestay as much as possible, but that did not made any noticeable difference.

I have attached a picture to help illustrate the issue. The measuring tape shows a gap of about 0.5cm (0.2 inches) on the forward section:

How much of a problem could this be? Is it something that is normal/acceptable, or does it have to be sorted out as quickly as possible?

Many thanks !

Don't worry.

On our old boat we had a 2006 selden c section mast. 13m.

It was deck steped and the heel was designed with a curve in the casting so the mast could do what yours is doing. If you look at the selden rig tune guide it shows the mast foot like yours.

Try and see if your mast has a curved heel casting. I'm not sure if it does or doesn't.

If your worried slacken the backstay and caps and tighten the forestay.

I personally don't see much of a problem.

Our new boat has a keel stepped mast, the mast is a monster some 17m total length made in carbon fibre. Our heel even tho being keel steped it's set again with the front edge slighty up. Just having sailed across fro
Dublin in a gale - I wasn't in a panic!

 

[VicS]

Bit of lateral thinking. Is there any chance that the the mast step area is collapsing.

To create that gap, the mast head must be about 20" back from the vertical. Even if the forestay was not tightened and all the slack resulting was taken up by the backstay the mast step area would have had to collapse by about 7 to 8"!

I think that would be rather obvious.

Or have I made a mistake in my calculations somewhere?

 

[AntarcticPilot]

Just a few notes that might help.

My dad owned a Halcyon 27 from new - it is a 1960s boat. I can't recall who made the spars, but the technical details are probably no longer available!

I certainly don't recall ever seeing such a rake on the mast. The original backstay only had bottle-screws for adjustment; you didn't adjust the backstay while sailing. Rigs were a lot more basic in those days!

I'd say that someone has attempted to set the mast up with a significant rake, and the step is simply not designed for it.

 

[Kylora]

I think that the OP needs to post a picture of the whole boat / mast - This Thread by the OP talks of 'excessive weather helm' so maybe the mast is excessively raked back with wrongly sized rigging.

Ash

 

[Seajet]

Ashonavega,

seems you've answered any lingering doubts; as they say in all the best TV dramas, 'there's no such thing as coincidence' !

 

[irati]

Many thanks for the number and quality of the replies

To answer a few questions and to provide more information:

The mast was replaced by the previous owner about 10 years ago. I've sent an email to Selden with the same picture, and the've replied asking for the mask rake and pre-bend figures, which I don't have or can't measure at the moment (liveaboard so boat full of stuff + lots of chain on bow + windvane on stern, so boat does not sit "flat" on the water as when empty, which makes it difficult to measure mast rake by hanging a heavy object from a halyard).

The survey did not highlight any problems with compression on the mast support area. That does not mean there aren't, but at least they are not obvious.

The cap shroud chainplates are slightly aft of the mast (about less than 1 inch aprox). I don't know if the original rig was set up this way, or the original mast step was a bit aft of the current position. The cap shrouds tension seems quite moderate, I could be wrong but it doesn't look like they are over tensioned.

I have already tightened the forestay as much as possible. I will ease the backstay a little bit more and see what difference it makes. At the moment, the forward lower shrouds are a bit tighter that the aft ones.

Re. my other question in the liveaboard forum about weather helm, I didn't mention it here because, as afaik, weather helm could be caused by:

1. Badly trimmed sails. I started sailing in June last year, and although I've already clocked 2000+ miles singlehanded since, proper sail trimming is still something I struggle with (always try not to oversheet when weather helm kicks in, but still have too many variables to play with to fully understand how to get the best possible sail shape).
2. Old sails: my sails are not new, the cloth is still in good condition but both genny and mail are a bit baggy.
3. Bad rig tuning. That is why I'm looking for a rigger and posting about the mast rake here, to get (or not!) one thing off the list of possible causes. Whether this will solve the problem with the weather helm, I don't know

So far, it looks like the only thing I can do (re. the mast rake) before I lay up the boat in winter is to ease the back stay a little bit more?

Many thanks again!

 

[Lakesailor]

Is the mast rake actually excessive or is it that the mast step plate is not horizontal as alluded to before?
I can't see it's a problem as long as the castings don't crack.
Do you have forward and aft lower stays. Could you put a bit more bend in the mast to straighten the lower section up?
It's really dependant on the overall situation, is the mast actually raked too much?
Is the mast bend matched to the cut of the main?

In your position I would slacken everything off and start from scratch.

 

[VicS]

So far, it looks like the only thing I can do before I lay up the boat in winter is to ease the back stay a little bit more?

If all you do is slacken the backstay you will end up with a very slack forestay.

Based on your photo, to adjust the mast until the heel sits flat on the step you will have to move the mast head forward by about 20inches (50cm).
To do this you will need to lengthen the backstay by about 12 inches ( 30cm) and shorten the forestay by nearly 5 inches ( 12.5cm).

 

[TQA]

To create that gap, the mast head must be about 20" back from the vertical. Even if the forestay was not tightened and all the slack resulting was taken up by the backstay the mast step area would have had to collapse by about 7 to 8"!

I think that would be rather obvious.

Or have I made a mistake in my calculations somewhere?

Nope all it would need to move is little more than the width of the gap shown in the pic. in the OP IE about 1/8th of an inch. A rotting hardwood spacer [ seen on a Chinese takeaway ] or a failing bulkhead could be the reason.