A few years back (2002) I snapped my mast, which was the original mast that came with my 1986 boat when I bought it used in 1993.  (It snapped because of yard and my error, when the yard put the mast up in the spring, it just stuck the pins at the end of the turnbuckle in and stuck brand new cotter pins in those pins, not bending them even a little bit.  The first sail was in medium breeze and the cotter pin and then the pin on the upper shroud fell out on the leeward side and when we tacked, BANG, the upper section of the mast snapped like a tooth pick, right at the upper spreaders.  We kept the rest of the mast up with checkstays fore and aft.  Stupid of me to not have double checked the cotter pins closely, especially since I had done an initial tuning of the rig to get it close.)

Anyway, the new mast was about 2 inches longer than the old one and after an incredible amount of hemming and hawing and measuring 8 billion times then coming back with the rigger the next week to measure 8 more billion times, we cut most of that 2 inches off, rounding the bottom a tiny bit.  According to our calculations, the mast ended up being exactly the same size as the old one.  Without cutting the 2 inches off, some of the rigging (which I had JUST replaced) from the old mast would not have fit!

Hopefully this was not any kind of rules violation but I'm not too concerned; I've bought used sails from others and they fit the boat perfectly...

Dan Stone, White Heat (#146)

Dan,

When a new mast is ordered for an older boat it is completely normal for the new mast to be about 2 inches to long. The reason for this is that there was a change to the mast step in the late 80’s (not sure exactly when). The newer boats have what I would call a tub in the head area that results in the mast step being lower in the boat. From what I understand Hall Spars makes the new spars to fit the newer boats, hence the longer spar. Older boats need to cut to fit.

I think what will be a concern for the future is will Hall order more aluminum extrusion when they run out? I believe they only have enough for a few more mast right now. Most mast they make to day are Carbon.

One thing that also leads to mast failure is wear in the holes that the spreader bars fit through, this past winter I noticed the spreader bars fitting rather loose and contacted Hall about this. The conversation lead me to a repair of the mast where the bars go through to make then tight again. Hall Spars advised me that when new the spreader bars are so tight they have to be forced in by hammer and only fit when inserted from the starboard side.

Bill Wildner

Robert,

I will try to complete some documentation of the process I used to repair the mast. I did a complete overhaul of the spar including stripping/painting, and bushing the gooseneck fittings, vang fitting and centerline halyard sheave. Will probably take me some time as this was a lot of work and a long process.

In its simplest form I bought a 3' section of mast from Hall Spar and used that to sleeve the mast, and then cut new holes for the spreader bars. See pictures for some ideas. The top spreader sleeve was installed in 2 pieces and the lower was in one section as you can see in the pictures. Screws were used to get sleeve in place and held tight, then countersunk rivets were used for final assembly

Bill

Hi Bill,

I am a new member from Holland owning J/35 hullnumber 295. I am in the proces of restoring this boat completely and am currently working on the mast. My spreader bars are still okay but on my previous boat wich was a J/39 I had the same problem as you and many other owners of boats with this type of Hall spar. I wil try to upload a picture of the way I fixed the problem on the J/39 and a picture of the restored mast in action. This method added stifness to the point where the aft point of the spreader wants to dent the wall of the mast (which it actually did on my mast. I carefully hammered the dents out) as well as created much bigger surfaces that will not wear out. I think the pictures are selfexplanatory. If not please tell me so. I will also upload one picture of my  "New Frontier" in her birth waiting for me to mount some deckgear and rigging.

Bill,

Are you kidding me ? Of course I plan to race the boat. And race her hard !!! It's what she was made for.

I called myself a new member but I realize now that that is not true. I meant to say that I had just recently (being today) registered to the site. But here is some information about me. I love J-boats, especially J/35, J/39, J29, J/22, I/44, J/33 and in that order.  I plan to take her out for a first sail next spring. "New Frontier" was built in 1992 as one of the very few by TPI with the new style cockpit. I bought the boat, which was originally called "Lender", from her first owner from Belgium who had raced her hard in the nineties but neglected her after that period. I have always considered the J/35 an "icon" because the boat is just so wickedly fast on all points of sail under all circumstances without being radical in any way and while being structurally very solid.

I do, however, very often complain about the fact that it is such a shame that TPI made so many mistakes  that cause so many problems over the years that could so easily have been prevented. We had to renew the core and the top laminate of almost half the area of the deck of the J/39 and on my J/35 I had to do that to parts of the deck too. As you will have gathered by now, I don't mind tinkering with boats, especially J-boats, and have done so for many hours and many years and would not mind at all to share what I have learned with other J35 owners. I also have hundreds of photographs of work being done to many parts of the boats I worked on that I am willing to share.

That's it so far.

kind regards,

Jan