Skerry--lesson learned the hard way

After stepping your mast, before doing anything else, secure the boom!  This morning about the only place I could find to rig my boat was with it nosed into some reeds--wind to the stern.  (I've been talked out of carrying an anchor along--but sure could have used one today to keep the bow into the wind while rigging.) 

Anyway, the wind was averaging about 10 kts, but there were gusts now and then as high as 15 or maybe 18 kts.  I stepped the mast and raised the sprit, and was standing there getting everything shipshape--ropes coiled and out of the way, clutter off the floor, etc., when all of a sudden I heard a loud crack.  The boom was all the way over to port, so it's not like it hit hard, but I guess there was enough of a gust to pull out the screws and split some of the wood. ripped out gooseneck

My first thought was to put bolts clear through the mast and big washers on the other side, etc.  But then I realized why the original screws are so short--better to rip out the screws than to over-stress the mast!  So, I have sanded the area down and put thickened epoxy in the screw holes and under the split wood.  It is all heavily clamped down.

Even though the area should be plenty strong, I'll probably wrap some fiberglass tape around it and epoxy the tape with a few coats.  Any thoughts?

Also I'm trying to decide whether to put the screws into the thickened epoxy in the original holes, or to slightly offset the screws into new holes.  Any comments on that will be welcome.

 


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RE: Skerry--lesson learned the hard way

Looks like the picture didn't work so good.  Nothing much to see anyway, but if you want, here's the URL:

https://www.adoberevel.com/libraries/3b40a73bacd64a9fb345789eee403492/assets/3f40aa2d4c5d871bce94706e5525ae83

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