Has anyone ever had repairs made to cracks in a mast? I found a crack on my mast. It is located in the area just above the cabin top. The crack was hidden by hardware, but when I removed the turning blocks and the vang attachment bracked at the bottom of the mast I found a crack that travels about half way around the back of my mast. It travels from one fastener hole to another, than another and to a final fastener hole. Can this be welded? Anyone have any ideas in how to repair?

I guess nobody has had the same problem I have - since I haven't recieved any respose from any of you. I have talked to rig-rite about a splice sleeve - they will sell me a section of mast to use as sleeve. Some how it needs to be cut down to fit inside the existing mast.. Not sure how that is to be done. Anyone have any experience with this?

Since the mast is tapered, you should get a section that is cut from an area of the mast small enough to just fit inside the section where the repair is to be made. Aluminum can be welded (TIG) but this would not be recommended for the location of the crack is in an area that could fatigue due to repeatedly varying stress. I suggest riveting the section in place above and below the crack. The interior sleeve will move the location of highest stress, so you should keep an eye on your mast for other cracks in this area during future inspections.

An update on my mast crack. I talked to rig-Rite and some other rigging shops about repairing the mast. I found that if you weld the mast you need to have it placed in an oven to re-temper it. I didn't have any place to do this in Kansas City so I ordered a three foot section of mast from Rig-Rite to make a sleeve from. I had to cut this mast section into pieces to get it to nest inside the existing mast. The idea is to get the maximim amount of metal to metal contact. I cut off the sail track extrusion from the three foot secion, and then cut a section from the front of the sleeve section. I ended up with two pieces of aluminum sleeve that nested inside the existing mast from the sail track extrusion at the back of the mast, to about an inch or so from the front center of the existing mast. Becaise the mast crack wasn't straight - I cut a two inch section out of my mast where the crack was so the two sections of mast would butt together nicely. I then used stainless steel pop rivets to fasten these two pieces to the inside of the upper and lower sections of the mast.
This repair wasn't that hard to do. You do need a saws-all to cut the sleeve sections and a good heavy duty rivet setting tool to set the pop rivets. I used about fifty 3/16 inch rivets. I also made a two inch thick block of ipe wood to raise up the existing mast step inside the boat to make up for the removal of two inches of mast. The end result would be no change in rigging.
I'm sure that a new mast might be better - but this repair cost me only about $125 - not $3600 for a new mast (plus shipping)

When I read the original post, your repair was pretty much what I envisioned. You didn't mention it but the other thing I would have done is to bond it all together with epoxy as it was being assembled. Not only would it help to strengthen the repair, it would help to fill any gaps between the spar and the doublers. Maybe next time I should speak up earlier. Good luck with your spar.

I thought of bonding it together with epoxy, but the whole process of riveting it together took about four hours. It was also about 100 degrees outside so it would have been hard to use epoxy in this case - the epoxy would set up way too soon - before I had the rivets all set and that might have kept the pieces from drawing together as I set the rivets.