Little help...straightening Radial lower

Sailorchick

Sailorchick

Member
Has anyone had any success straightening a radial bottom section?

My radial bottom section has a major bend on it which is really not helpful. Mast is less than a year old and the bend appeared after only a few months of use. Its now got to the stage where the bend is huge.
I'm quite happy straightening top sections but have never tried to straighten a bottom section. Anyone got a techniques that might work.

Cheers
 
Re: Little help...

The Australian Radial sailors were very experienced with straightening them. I think we now import our Radial sections from the UK after even the factory gave up with the Australian produced sections which would permanently bend if you showing them photo of a flag waving.
 
Re: Little help...

UK ones don't seem very good at the moment. I managed to bend the one supplied with my Worlds Charter within the week and we didn't even sail every day.

Prior to this year I've never had a problem with them (snapped a few but not bent any). I did get a new one at the weekend but as the bent one is so young seems a shame to just bin it.
 
Re: Little help...

As the section is less than 1 year old is it not under warranty still?

Sounds to me like there is a material issue here and LP need to made aware.

I have seen several bent radial sections in my time but only ever after stupid amounts of wind.

I had a radial for one of my boat for when it was stupidly windy and I neve rmanaged to bend it...
 
Re: Little help...

Hi Jeffers - I think the Tiger Trophy was the last straw for this mast. I'm sure you have seen the reports so know how windy that event was. (For non UK sailors its a mixed handicap event, 118 entries, only about 48 finished at least one race, only myself and one other laser managed 2+ races - it was loopy!) Highly unlikely LP would accept it as warranty as I used this mast at that event. It was already bent but the stupidly high gusts at that event won't have helped.
 
Re: Little help...

Can't you bend it back like you would with an upper section? Just keep the sections attached and push down on the bent area and hope it comes out?
 
I had a friend "inherit" a slightly bent radial lower that he figured would be easy to fix with his garge full of stuff. He marked the center of the bend on top and spots where supports should be. Then set it on two 6X6 blocks either side of the bend and pushed down hard. With the bucket of a Kubota tractor. the slight bend won; the tractor lifted off the deck. It took a lot of jiggering and some real power to take that bend out. It had to be bent well past straight with more power than you would expect to get the kink out. More than once. Be prepared to buy replacement. The chance of catastrophic OOOPPS :eek: during repair is significant.
 
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