I may as well go ahead and tell you.

[bamamick]

Since this seems to be sort of a therapy for me I may as well tell you that I broke my Finn mast the other day.

I was out practicing with my friend Louie. Light air day, lovely really. We were sailing beats and runs. We did four trips up and back and I never beat Lou, but he's got about, uh, 35 years or so of Finn experience on me and I don't really look at beating him yet though I do try. The Fairhope YC had given me permission to leave my Finn in their lot for the next few weeks leading up to the Gulf Coast Champs.

Since I had some errands to run I sailed the boat back while Lou stayed out to practice some more. When I got back to the club the launching area was a traffic jam with an S2 something or other and a bunch of power boats waiting to launch. They very kindly let me pull my boat out, but the parking lot was a mess (this club is currently being rebuilt from damage by Katrina) and I was having to zig and zig with the car to try and get the boat back around to where I was supposed to leave it when I hit an oak tree limb, knocked the boat off the trailer (and put a pretty good scratch on my new gelcoat) and put a split in the upper couple of feet of the mast.

Disaster. This black cloud has been following me for awhile now and I don't know if I am going to shake it. I cursed. I wailed. I gnashed some teeth. I took the boat apart and hooked it back up to the Jeep for the ride home with the rig tied to the roof rack. All the way home I was thinking 'I just need to sell everything but the Dragon'. At least with just one boat the headache and hardship should stay within reason, right? I called my wife and told her. She said 'well honey, you'll just have to buy another mast'. I laughed and told her that a new Finn mast costs $3500-4000, and then you have to figure out a way to get it here from Europe. I paid $3000 for the boat, trailer, everything!

Well, after a lot of thought and several e-mails it will be o.k. Two buddies of mine are down at the club today trying to fit one of two different Needlespars (aluminum) into my boat so that I can continue to practice (I am at work). My good friend Donnie (the US Olympic sailing team's boatwright) is going to get some carbon fiber and patch my old rig. And a friend in New Orleans is buying a new spar and will sell me his current wing at a good price, which will be quite an upgrade. So, instead of selling out and giving up, I may even be able to attend some decent races with this new mast.

Just another week in the life. If you can begin to see a love/hate thing going on with me and my boats maybe you will understand a little better. My motto is nothing comes without a price. For every two steps forward I take one step back. I don't really know if it keeps me sane or is driving me insane. I guess time will tell.

Mickey Lake

[Jay Greer]

A broken mast can ruin your entire day!
Sorry to hear of your misfortune!
JG

[John R - Kitenui]

Ouch !! Life's full of it isn't it.
Lets hope the boat goes so much better with the new rig; that you would not have obtained had it not been for this misfortune. It may be a well disguised blessing.
I'll keep my fingers crossed for you Mickey

[Hwyl]

Am I reading it correctly? Was your old mast carbon, and you're upgrading to a better carbon? If the old mast was carbon the repair may be all you need.

Are you insured, often masts are covered.

P.S. I'm kicking myself because i did a brake job on my new (to me) car and did not replace the hub cap properly. I noticed it missing last night, a new set will cost all of $20.

[bamamick]

Liability only. Yes the old mast is a round carbon section by Hall. My friend thinks that he can repair it. I really hope so as the Needlespar that my buddies want to loan me will require minor surgery and I don't feel right about doing that to someone else's mast.

The new mast that I hope to buy this winter is a wing mast, shaped like an airplane wing. It looks a little sturdier, but the advantage is supposedly that there is lift added by the wing, sort of like unmeasured sail area. My round carbon mast is as flimsy as a fishing rod and the top of the sail flies off in any breeze.

We will see how the repair on my mast goes. My friend did not have any carbon fiber in the shop but should have some soon. I may just miss some much needed practice time and not any racing.

Mickey Lake

[Hwyl]

Thanks for the explanation, carbon is the way to go. I went to a lecture by Ben Hall about ten years ago. He talked about one of his workers experimenting with an ice boat mast.They worked a carbon mast so it had all the same measureable parameters as an alloy mast: weight, deflection, diameter, radius of gyration (not section, but end for end). he carbon mast was still faster, of course it was not a double blind test.

I've sailed with wing masts on tri's. Certainly make you think, you'll have to have the sail recut.

[Tom Galyen]

Everyone mentions your boat and masts, but how many guys have a wife that just says go out and buy a new mast. Heck with the boat she's a keeper.!

Tom G. (Seaweed)

[bamamick]

Not once in 24 years has she veto'd one of my projects, and if she has had negative feelings towards them I haven't ever seen it. Of course she has been a sailor all of her life (she has won the Gulf Yachting Assoc. women's championship twice as crew. Her sister won it as a skipper). She understands, at least most of the time.

I am pretty sure that I will keep her, IF she let's me :).

Mickey Lake