[Public-List] mast bend

[Dave Terrell]

I have a strange problem with my mast. It bends forward a bit from about five or seven feet below the top of the mast. I have roller furling and I have tried both tightening and loosening the fore stay but either way some of the bend presists. It seemed worse when the forestay was looser. I even tried detuning the mast completely and starting again. (Unfortunately, I failed to look carefully at the bend while the mast was fully detuned.) In any case, the retuned mast still had some forward bend. I do not know if the mast is bent in any way when it is off the boat. I doubt that but must be willing to consider any possbility. I can remove a lot of the bend by tightening the back stay, but that seems like overkill to me and not really the best solution because it forces the result too much. The mast is moved as far forward  as possibnle right now. I did take most of the rake out of the mast - got it to Peter Nielson's (editor of Sail Mag. and author of Sail  Power) recommendations (1% of the mast height). I think that helped things out some.

Any thoughts about why this problem exists and how it can be remedied? Thanks in advance for your thoughts and help.

David, Scholarship II, 432