breaking laser mast

splashdown

New Member
Anybody had this happen to them?

Happened to me the other day, I was close hauled in very mild wind, I tacked , heard a crack and down she came. The lower mast broke about ten inches below the end where it joins the upper mast.

It has made me wary of two-blocking whilst beating as this bends the mast and I don't want to snap another one!

Any thoughts?
 
Wow, I have never had this happen or seen it or rarely even heard of this happening. About ten inches from the top of the bottom mast section is where the end of the top section is inside it so yeah, it could possibly have been from too much bend caused by two-blocking but I sure hope not...
 
Are we talking standard section, radial section or something else. How old was the section ? Salt water use ?

You don't have to worry about sailing around two bocked with a section that is in good condition. They won't break under normal conditions, especially if you aren't loading the vang up (that put's more stress on the mast then two blocking the mainsheet)

I've seen sections that lost a lot of the wall thickness due to corrosion from salt water, and those can break (but I'm talking about a loss of 50% of the wall thickness, which takes years to reach and or sailing in extreme conditons or a violent capsize or the most efficent mast breaker -> getting the mast stuck in the sea bottom after a capsize)

The radial section is a much thinner walled section (about 50% less then the std) with reinforcment (an additional section of tubing) on the inside that starts below the area that you are saying broke, so if it was a radial section AND it had a lot of corrosion in that area, then I could see where there just wasn't enough wall thickness to support the load.
 
i snapped my mast this morning. radial rig in a lot of wind in the sea. i bore away round the top mark super fast hear a bang and down the whole thing came. managed to sail back to the club with my new-style gaff rig.

bit of a bitch though.
 
This one sounds vang related.

jonathanbean said:
i snapped my mast this morning. radial rig in a lot of wind in the sea. i bore away round the top mark super fast hear a bang and down the whole thing came. managed to sail back to the club with my new-style gaff rig.

bit of a bitch though.
 

Back
Top