REINFORCEMENT UNDER MAST

[philwebb]

Hi folks. I need to have my mast taken off and attend to problems underneath caused by water ingress. This problem was fixed by the boatyard some years ago and I think that the remains of the balsa core was scraped out and a piece of marine ply glassed in to support the mast. I was thinking of replacing the ply like for like and epoxying it back in covered with layers of woven glass fibre or carbon glass fibre. Is there a better material than marine ply to strengthen the area under the mast??

 

[B27]

It may depend what's below the deck.
If you only need a small are, between the mast foot and a post under the deck, then solid GRP might be an option.
If you need to spread the load over a bulkhead or something, ply or solid wood might be better.

I would have expected ply rather than balsa in the stressed area right under the mast foot, but rotten ply is much like rotten balsa...

 

[ash2020]

Tufnol. Although more expensive than ply. https://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/plas...52a83ab94c3a1321dcc45fc9e86d2a8b&gclsrc=3p.ds

 

[chris-s]

G10 seems to be highly regarded for this with its minimal compression properties as seen in the recent ‘sailing fair isle’ YouTube episode where they rebuild there compression post support.

 

[philwebb]

G10 seems to be highly regarded for this with its minimal compression properties as seen in the recent ‘sailing fair isle’ YouTube episode where they rebuild there compression post support.

Hi Chris, I’ll have a look at this. Thanks!

 

[Alex_Blackwood]

Hi Chris, I’ll have a look at this. Thanks!

link.
G10 material

 

[Kelpie]

link.
G10 material

Link not working

 

[Alex_Blackwood]

Link not working

OOPS! Try this.
G10 material - Google Suche

 

[Kelpie]

OOPS! Try this.
G10 material - Google Suche

Looks very useful stuff but for the thickness required under a mast foot probably pretty expensive. I think in my case I'll need about 1". I can see why the builders just used ply...