I personally have never broken an N20 mast, but I figure it would only be a matter of time with my "extrodinary" skills at breaking stuff.

I'm just looking at the possible "green" side of aluminum vs. carbon.

My trophy consisting of a small section of Ryan's N6.0 aluminum mast does look rather nice on my bookshelf. I guess you could cut a broken carbon mast into sections and make trophies out of them for future regattas....

And if N20 carbon masts can be successfully repaired, why aren't they? Did the insurance company require you to toss out the broken mast?

Aren't you missing a key requirement that would preclude the breaking of said mast?

I didn't say "MY" mast. I said "A" mast....

Are you saying I can't break yours?

I probably should have... I think I truly pitchpoled only once (the rest were bow burying stops followed by sideways capsize) because I sent Slaughter around the forestay so hard I saw his outline on the lee of the spinnaker before he went under.

Can't remember where we were, but I think it was over on this coast for a weekend regatta (maybe Tradewinds?). It was 1/2 way to C and we were seriously trucking down on a bunch of ya'll double trapping because there was an offset mark at A and a slight windshift. Big puff stuffed the bows and made that Kodak moment for Slaughter. I think the PRO heard the F word from Slaughter despite the wind noise.

Insurance companies dont generally care about the broken sections and you can usually keep them.

I have repaired 3 carbon masts, its a fairly complex repair.

On my HT mast the break was a compound fracture, and I had to make a cast to recreate a shattered 12x4 inch section of the mast. I used this missing spot to do both the internal repair and the external repair at the same time on one side. I then repaired the other side from the outside. I still have this cast in case anyone breaks an HT mast. Gettting a new one from Italy is about $5k and that was a 2005 price.

Most carbon mast breaks I've seen including the i20 and Acat masts are much cleaner breaks.

For all 3 masts, I ground off the splintered area using a dremel and got back to solid material. For the Acat and i20 mast I created a hollow internal sleeve that served as a way to align and add structure to the repair. (This is a bit tricky and I now have a mold for both Acat and i20 sleeves) The last step is to taper back the old material and add layers of new material. This step is easy and straight forward.

So the question is why isnt this done as a matter of common practice? The answer is that
1. If you had to pay someone to fix them it would be expensive if they didnt have a method to do it.
2. It changes the bend charactoristics of the mast.
3. Its easier to get a new one.

The interesting thing about the HT mast is that Peter Cogan made me a beautiful kevlar square top main, and he has recommended a stiffer mast to hold the square top section in breeze. So the HT mast works as good or better than it did originally, especially in big breeze.

Many of the Acat sailors are actually adding carbon to their masts to stiffen them up for the newer square top mains, so an older Acat mast could be repaird and used competitively I believe.

The i20 Mast might be a stiff in the middle. If you can test the bend charactoristics of a new carbon mast, you could tune the repair so that it bends in the same range. If you did that, I'd bet that you wouldnt be able to tell once you were sailing it.

Anyone who wants a mast repaired is welcome to send them to me in CT. I can either fix it for a fee, or sell you a sleeve and instructions or buy the mast from you.

The i20 mast is for sale as well.

Bill.

The manufacturer of the mast would only replace it if you could prove it was defective. Which is probably not the case, and would be hard to prove.


The good news is that you can make an insurance claim on a broken mast. I dropped my Dart 16 mast and dented it in the middle. The insurance company paid for a new one plus shipping from England.

I've received *rough* measurements on the N20 stick in Singapore from Scott who provided me the previous pics:

How do they stack up to the current mast?