blew out my mast box

powergroove

powergroove

Member
Sailing yesterday in 12-15 with some stronger gusts and in a not so strong puff my mast box exploded. The hull was free but I still want a refund!
Whats the next step? Do you guys recommend a mast step repair, or just look for a newer hull? My question is really...do the mast steps replacements work well, what is the life expectancy of them, how hard is it to repiar them, and do I really need that kit if I have some fiberglass skills and am not afraid of cutting into and repairing the hull myself?
 
I guess the answer would kind of depend on how good the rest of the hull is. Since you got it for free, I'm guessing it wasn't in the greatest shape to start with. I would bet a properly installed repair kit would probably outlive the rest of the boat. You could try to find another hull, but you may face the same problem.
 
for god's sake man, make the repair. you got it for free quit your whining. the repair is easy and it happens in older boats and it is not going to add that much weight to your boat. fix it and have a ball. one of my or my brothers 4 lasers have the repair and they are fine.
 
Put some stays on teh lower section. Cut the sleeve and install a zipper so the sleeve can work around the mast attachment points. Add a trapeze and go blast around . You will have a great time!!!
 
It sure wasn’t great when I was out racing and my Mast step / socket blew apart on me, but it’s totally fixable. I was doing some research and came across this form I was going to try to glass it in my self but ended up not doing that because it would never look or be as strong as before. I’m no pro at fiber glassing, so my next thing was to look into these repair kits and I came across a few and after looking at them in the store I wasn’t impressed with how flimsy they are. I’m located in Toronto and when to fogh, they have a kit but its two parts and honestly didn’t look that strong but worst of all the instruction honestly where a photo copy with a hand drawn diagram and 3 paragraphs. I knew after reading the useless instruction that it was more then I should bite off. I was lucky I found fiberglass repair shop in Midland / Penetanguishene Ontario that could sell me a much better mast step kit. What I liked about this one is that it sits lower to the deck and has a surface that matches a laser original deck much better then the one I looked at online or at Fogh. I called Diversifiedfiberglass.ca and ended up just having him install the kit. He did a FANTASTIC job and the turn around time was about a week. I dropped it off one weekend and picked it up the next. So check out DiversifiedFiberglass.ca. I’m including some before and after shots as well. Oh as for you/us racers, the added mast kit hardly change my weight or the mast rake of my laser ps he also did a pressure test of my laser and fixed two holes in the grab rail so that was an added plus.

http://diversifiedfiberglass.ca/laser-mast-kit-repair.asp
Laser-Mast-step.jpg
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laser-fixed-2.jpg
 
Mr Zimm, I note that your photos are identical to those on the supplier's website. Do you have a financial interest in promoting this product?
 
Those are the photos are the ones he emailed me after the repair. My intention are purely to get the word out because I was so frustrated about having blew my mast step. I talked to so many people about repairing it my self, read a ton of stuff on the web. Then after I was going to make the jump into doing it my self and was supprized with what was sold. You can buy the kit for 350ish CND, but it had the worst instruction not to mention again I state was pretty flimsy. My boat was actually located about 60km from Ted's place so it was perfect for me. I just know allot of guys like me that buy a laser then only to have it bust and then thing it's going to be $$$ to fix or look really bad. I just felt there had to be a better solution and I think I found it. Thus why not let everyone know.
 
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