"Dag Stenberg" wrote in message
...
WaIIy wrote:
On Sat, 15 Jan 2005 14:47:58 GMT, "Jim," wrote:
BillP wrote:
When we bought the boat there were only a few wedges in place, not
enough
for proper support. I understand how the SparTite system works but is
there another system that would work? Say just filling the partner with
silicon, would this allow to much flexing? How firm is the SparTite
after
it sets?, does it allow some movement or does it harden as a solid
rubber?

One of the guys in my YC seals the mast opening with a piece of line
jammed into place (ater adjusting the stays to give him proper rake),
then coats it with silicone. Since we have to drop the mast every year
for haulout, it seems to work well for him

Which brings me to a question. I know next to nothing about sailboats
and I notice in a marina near me (Cleveland) that some of the sailboats
take down the mast for winter and some don't.

Regarding the nuisance of taking the mast down, I would not like to have
my boat close to someone who did keeps the mast up, and is toppled over
by a strong wind. (In our harbour, everybody who uses a plastic tarp
lost theirs in the storm we had just before Christmas. I also saw some
tarp supports blown over, not to speak of small craft that were blown
partly from their supports).

In the marinas around here, hundreds of boats are hauled and blocked with
the masts up. In 10 years I have only seen one boat fall over and that was
due to the sand erroding out from under a stand during a particularly
heavy downpour. Winds during the winter here can reach up to 60mph.
We have had 2 hurricanse roll through here with no toppled boats
either, winds up tp 70mph. I guess it is all in how the boats are blocked.

Another thing is, if you leave the mast up, you have to loosen the
stays and shrouds anyway to prevent the stress on the hull from the
shortening of wire in cold, so the additional nuisance of taking the
whole thing out is not so big. And makes it easiedr to survey the whole
thing before the next season.

I've never heard of doing that around here. We keep our boat in the water
as do many boaters. But nobody loosens the rig that I have even seen.

All cranes in my area can lift yachts with the mast up (provoding the
aft stays are removed), so that is not an impossibility. It also seems
that there are no regulations against keeping the mast up. If I were an
insurance official, I would make it illegal because of the increased
risks of toppling or stresses on the hlul. After all, the leverage
imposed by a mast is much more than without.

That may be the difference. Nobody around here hauls boats with a
crane. All the yards that do hauling have Travelifts, forklifts, or
railways.

Mast wedges and the seal do not seem at all the same thing to me. Wedges
are there to take up stresses, and the seal to prevent leakage. If one
uses wedges instead of Spartite, one can easily change the position of
the mast, as trimming requires, by just moving the wedges. I understand
that this is impossible with Spartite.

That is true, but I've never seen anyone actually move the wedges once they
are in position. Spartite doesn't leak which is it's strong point.

Dag Stenberg

Doug
s/v Callista