Hi Mark:

Original masts at three failure points.

1st and foremost no in line lowers allowed the spinnaker pole to press aft against the rig on a tight reach and push the rig backwards into fore and aft S-curve . . . and a lot of rigs came down. Make sure you have in line lowers installed complementing the after lowers.

2nd; unlike today's above hounds slots + spectackle . . . origional rigs have a sheve box that was welded into the rig inluding wing sheves and forestay tang. The welds on these sheve boxes can crack. The solution; inspection and rewelding.

3rd; some rigs did collapse at the topping lift sheve . . . hard to say how many were associated as after effect of the no in line lower failures. Backing plates were used to resolve this question.

Mike Bruizzone

:: Hi:

:: I heard that the original masts for the Express 27 had a
:: flaw that caused them to fail at the uphaul location. Is
:: this true? Could someone elaborate on this? Is there
:: anyway to correct this problem?

:: Was this a problem for all boats or just the early ones?
:: If so, what were the hull numbers that were affected?
::
:: Cheers,

:: Mark