Diamond wire attachment point

[Mike]

matt.
My carbon mast on the 22 is showing compression/delam on the front of the mast directly above the alum foot castingon the front of them mast. It is inbetween the tang attachment points for the diamond stays and looks like it is sort of a carbon/alum/stainless corrosion process going on. ( can send photo) The stick is down awaiting repair . Will remove diamonds completely and lower tangs. Question is......I think I remember seeing a mast foot that had an exterior lip around the front edge of the mast that the tangs bolted on to and then the diamond turnbuckles went to this? Looks like a later design that took the load pressures and carbon/stainless reastion issue away by bolting the tangs directly to the extended lip on the front of the mast step. Was I just dreaming or I have seen this on a newer boat?

dont want to rebuild the whole carbon mast foot ,etc if a better solution is out there.

Thanks
Mike Kelley

[Matt Haberman]

Hi Mike,

I am 99% sure that you didn't see that on a 22, the mast base is still done the same way as your boat. This is going back a long ways in my memory to 1991, but what I think you might recall seeing is the mast base on Nigel's 27 that came from Hall spars. I seem to recall that they had the diamond tangs attached to front of the mast base as you describe.

The bottom bolt in each diamond tang is through bolted into the cast mast base so moving it down would really have no effect on reducing the compression loads on the mast base. I am guessing what you are seeing is more due to corrosion then compression loads.