What follows are my notes on this modification.  I expect we will be modifying my modification, so its good to have a record of the repair for when I cannot remember.

It all started in late March  when the starboard sidestay snapped and the whole sailplan blew into the water. Damn.  It was my neighbor Ajit’s second time in the scow and he was marveling at the engineering of the boat…until our little mishap.  We blew down river and right next to a race of Lasers.  We were towed in by a race committee boat that was closing out their Frostbite series.

Up on dry land, I could see the damage was not the stay, which was surely busted, but the mast hinge and plate that had been installed over the original mast well.  These boats are through deck stepped, meaning the mast goes down into a hole in the deck and rests on the keelson.  The hinge is a retrofit that makes  raising the mast a one person affair.

But ours was not a great piece of engineering.  The boom vang snagged on it and the whole darn assembly just popped out of the deck when the rigging went over.  In retrospect, this saved our mast from destruction; if the foot had not been uprooted from the deck, we might have bent the mast.

So, the goal of this repair would be to retain the “breakaway” capacity of the mast hinge while providing a bit more support and a cleaner install.  I got one idea from a boat specialist in Lake Wauwausee, Indiana, who told how he used the bottom section of his mast to support the deckplate he installed.  Good idea!  I used some aluminum channel riveted together to make a box that sat on the keelson.  That would allow me to install the plate flush with the deck, or even a bit recessed to bring the mast down closer to the hull.

Next, I figured I would use some smaller stainless screws to fix the plate into wood braces on either side of that mast well.  These screws serve only to hold the plate in place when raising the mast.  In an accident, their should shear or pull out of the wood, saving the spar.  That is the theory.

Finally, the stainless hinge is bolted to the aluminum plate.  Naturally, when all was completed, we found out one of our

new stays was backwards and upside down.  So, we were delayed one more week while that piece was re-swaged.  With luck it will arrive this week in time to get the boat on the water this weekend