INVESTIGATOR 563

Earlier in the year Ian B mentioned he had a new mast mount for sale. I purchased this from him and finally a week ago I got around to fitting this on Aminee.

I always suspected the old one may have fractures but as I only drop the mast once per year for inspection I had not really noticed anything. I had broken off a vang fixing point on it years back (not a good idea to use this in my view).

Anyway I thought I would post a few pics of the old mount. As you can see it has a fracture halfway down the centre. I suspect this is not fatal and probably expected as the mast has for 30+ years rocked slightly from side to side even a just few mm.

Even if it did fail completely it would stay in place and continue to act as a mast mount support. This however could mean that cracks could develop anywhere in these ageing structures and it may pay to check them regularly. Unsure of how one would replace it - I often thought I might need to have a Stainless Steel one made up if it failed completely.

Here are the pics.

Mark. Bob Keeleys business has apparently been taken over by a man called Karl Mueller
Keeley Marine Supplies 3/6 Horscroft Place Moorabbin 3189 ph 03 9555 4622.
Hopefully they will continue Bobs re manufacture or old Ronstan fittings such as the mast base. My mate with the court 750 had a stainless replacement made and it worked quite well .

Easier to fabricate than a mast plug I guess.

Old Bob explained to me that most failures of the mast base were due to not setting the base on a fully supportive surface. A rigid bog is needed between the deck and the base. Also, note that if your rigging lengths/alignment of the base, are not matching, the force on the base can be high on one end or the other. The tang for the boom vang is far too weak, and as noted on an earlier post, a simple solution is to just mount a mast hound fitting on the bottom of the mast.