[last mango]

Have an Endeavour 38 and noticed the port spreader sagging down one day. Well on investigation when we pulled the spreader off the socket/base it was discovered part of the base was broken. One of the previous owners at some stage had a problem with this and went in and drilled into the broken portion and ran a sheet metal screw in and then just wired the bushing in that the retainer pin goes through on the spreader. Looks like the tried to put some epoxy or JB Weld type material to fill it some. When the bushing broke up, that's why the spreader end on the mast dropped and the ends on the stays sagged some. Mickey mouse way of doing it and has been that way awhile. Guessing the PO did this just to get by and sell it. The bad part is the spreader base is welded to the mast. This is an Isomat mast. So wondering if there are any bright ideas out there. Guess at some stage going to have to have it pulled to work on. Any thoughts would be appreciated. Attached a pic if I did this right
Another Day
Daphne, AL

ATTACH]45002[/ATTACH]

 

[Markwesti]

Unfortunately this is very serious , and you have been very lucky not to have had the mast come down . That said, you IMO should higher a competent rigger . Good luck .

 

[Skipper Jer]

Fixing it right is probably cheaper than a new mast. Pull the mast, grind it off, use the starboard base as a pattern to have a shop mill two of them, one port (broken) and one starboard (same age, same stress, about to fail?). Get a competent welder to put them back on. Of course, as said before have a competent rigger on hand.

 

[desert rat]

My boat knowledge is LIMITED but that sounds right to me.

 

[last mango]

One of the local riggers said as much that would have to grind the welds out to get the plate off. The sockets are available at Rigrite looks like so they're still out there. Will check them all while out. Double spreaders. Excuse to run new led lights and new wiring while going to that much work. Nothing is ever easy at times it seems.

 

[zz4gta]

+1 to everyone else. I'm also a rigger.
You need to pull the stick and get it fixed, have the rigger inspect the other spreaders while it's down.

To be honest that picture frightens me. Someone was up the mast when they took that photo.

 

[Atlas]

Re: Broken Spreader Socket

Hi LastMango, I've been watching this post for a week or so, but didn't try to answer as I'm really not qualified for it. However, since no one else has posted, I'll give it a shot. (Caveat emptor: I'm no boat expert, as I already said.)

To the best of my understanding, the mast hasn't been compromised by local buckling/ crippling of the sheet metal, and your only problem is how to remove the spreader base without hurting the mast section. If that's the case, you could leave the spreader bases in place and weld in new bases just below the original ones. This won't affect the tuning of your rig much, and you can avoid the risk of structural damage to the mast in attempting to remove the original spreader bases.

 

[capta]

Re: Broken Spreader Socket

If you want to do this the most economical way possible, I would suggest you hire a professional rigger to inspect it and give you the best course of action. I've been at this stuff professionally for over 50 years and I can't give you any other advice from that picture. Sometimes you've just got to bite the bullet and pay the professional to do the job properly, especially when it comes to keeping your rig up.
Moving the mount to a different location on a 38 footer, would mean moving both.