I have been doing a lot of reading on A-cats recently, and have noticed that a lot of them have repaired masts.
This pretty much means that a lot of A-Cats at some point have broken masts.
Can someone out there shed some light on this subject, with special emphasis on how this is most likely to happen?
Blow over on the beach?
Pitchpole?
Faceplant?
Jibe with the mast rotation locked?
Lifting up the trailer to change a tire?

Most of the times I've seen a mast break it is because of a pitchpole downwind with a lot of downhaul on. The primary reason for the masts breaking in years past was when someone forgot to ease the downhaul as they rounded the top of the course and then pitchpoled. However, just before foiling started to come onto the scene, there was a lot of experimentation with ever more bendier masts and different sail cuts to get different up and downwind shapes. I believe these masts were a lot more sensitive to impact and we were seeing a lot more of them breaking.

At a very windy Worlds a few years ago in Islamorada, I was just finishing my second lap in the third race and had just capsized while avoiding an out of control boat. Once righted, I looked up the course and counted 9 broken masts (from capsizes / collisions). I looked over my still-intact boat and decided to head for the beach. This was just at the beginning of the period where a lot of a-catters were experimenting with the bendier rigs



Edited by jake on Dec 19, 2014 - 05:56 AM.

Ok, so with a Sarburg medium mast, I have a little less to worry about? What is your pre rounding routine at the A mark in medium wind?
I'm thinking;
Ease main sheet
Off trapeze
Pull W dagger
Blow downhaul (to preset tension )
begin turn and travel out
Head down low and settle the boat
Pull L dagger(is that possible?)
Move to back corner and steer to course.


Am I in the neighborhood?

I'm guessing the mast breaks from hitting the water on its side rather than it's long axis, with downhaul pressure. Also , possibly because the skipper is hanging onto the rear beam trying to avert the pitch pole, adding more pressure at impact. Moral of the story being "don't pitchpole".

Yeah, that's pretty much it. I don't race an a-cat anymore but in moderate air, I usually made all of those adjustments just after rounding the mark. My boards both had up-hauls on them and I tied them together in the middle of the trampoline. I could just come in off the wire and get close to the middle of the trampoline as I made my way to the mast. I would grab that uphaul line in front of me and swing it left, swing it right, and both boards were up for the downwind leg. Then release rotation and downhaul.

Downwind, the mast is pretty close to 90 degrees - so a straight over-the-nose pitchpole would have the mast absorbing the impact on it's minor axis.