J/30 Class Association Forums J/30 Forum The Boat, Sails and Equipment Spreader thru-bars

I would agree Annap seems like the easier route...

...painting Hall spreaders is not a hard do it yourself project but it is the paint that is expensive for the small job...I would use Awgrip and a Preval sprayer for this small job/

My boat simply has a tube about an inch in diameter that goes through the mast at the aft end of the spreader brackets. There is a 1 inch hole on both sides that the tube slides through. It is then flush with the outside of the mast, so the brackets are basically pushing on that, instead of the mast. Seems like a real easy and cheap fix.

Scott

That's interesting. Did it look like a retrofit or a factory job? I have heard that there is a small tube at the aft end the spreader bracket attachment point that is welded at the factory into the section.

I also heard that one of the problems is that this was apparently not enough reinformcement...because the front of the bracket tends to pull away from the mast --

- maybe your in your instance the 1" bar retrofit solution (if that is what it is) is that by providing a larger, stronger more rigid compression point at the back --- it is enough to prevent this flexing.

I can't imagine once you bore a 1" hole on each side of the mast at the aft end of the bracket that you would even consider cutting more away further forward for a thru-bar.

So your mast is basically done...no thru bar potential here unless you weld a patch or sleave to cover the 1" holes.

I guess one has to take the brackets off to know fully what they are dealing with ...thanks.

I'm assuming its some sort of retrofit job. Like you said, there is nothing at the front of the brackets to keep them from separating. Not sure how good of a fix it is, but like you said, its there, its going to stay there.

something is better than nothing and having seen and heard many stories of these masts going over the side on a regular basis i suppose it is just a matter of when ,not if, without some kind of modification. thanks for your comments and info.

I saw the picture of the J-24 thru bar - not much to it. If the J-30 thru bar is about the same I could easily duplicate it on my Plasma Cutter. Just need some accurate dimensions or an acurate drawing.

Follow up; got mast, launched boat, went sailing. Sailing is so much more fun that boat work, beyond compare.

I think that the Hall Spars kit probably looks like the J/24 thru bar, plus they add spreaders. This type of kit is probably best not done by the DIY'er. A simple thru-bar (long bolt??)that utilizes the OEM parts would lend itself more to DIY. The thru bar extends far into the spreader. About 5" & 7" outboard, there are heavy pins thru the spreader and thru bar, about 1" diameter. They are cotter pinned. The rather underbuilt but sufficient OEM spreader is replaced by something that has heavy weld beads, and a completely heavy duty look. It's aluminum, and I did not get a weight of it, it's probably not actually heavy in weight. The shroud goes thru a channel in the outboard end with an end plate (no more bailing wire holding the shrouds).

Since I got the rig on Tuesday & launched it Wednesday, I did not remove the pins to look at the bar because I was busy with launching duties. But you can see that it's a grown up version of the J/24 bar, and clearly one should know exactly how they are going to cut their rig precisely for such a thru bar, prior to cutting. You could go very wrong with that process. Since there are other ways to skin this car, which include a sleeve, or a thru bolt, or several thru bolts, those should be explored among the DIY'ers.

Temptation...so it sounds like you went with the Hall Kit and a professional rigger?

Can you tell me final price for everything and can I get contact # for rigger to speak to them?

I did buy the Hall kit for lack of ANY alternative (I called Annap. Rigging but I did not receive a return call). It was $2200. It's around $900 for the kit + 16 hours of install time. In typical marine fashion it seems to be a $2 fix for a 50 cent problem, but I am back to the peace of mind place where I needed to be.

I thought I would bring this question to the surface. While Scott and I have the mast to work, is everyone happy with the $450 retrofit kit? Can we install it ourselves vs. paying 16 hours of expensive labor?