sailboat mast tangs

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New Mast Tangs

• Thread starter Roger Long
• Start date Dec 13, 2010
• Forums for All Owners
• Ask All Sailors

If your mast can handle it, why not convert to T-ball fittings?  

Tim R. said: If your mast can handle it, why not convert to T-ball fittings? Click to expand

Good job, Roger. A better, more forgiving design. As you know, the metal brake marks from bending should be polished out for best fatigue protection. You're never going to have to worry about that piece being a problem !!  

Always better to have the bend with a small radius than to have a sharp bend. There shouldn't be much if any flexing on the tang if the alignment is correct.  

I disagree with the design!!!! The most vulnerable and quite 'unpredictable' part of the design will be the 'kinked' or bent section of the tang. Such will cause minute flexure at the 'kink' when the rigging stretches and the base dimensions change. This is what a structural engineer would call a 'stress riser' ... a geometric shape, etc. that causes the 'combined lines of stress' to abnormally and artificially come close together thus raising the 'apparent stress' to much much higher levels than if in 'pure simple tension'. Anytime you make stress 'turn a corner' you vastly reduce the load bearing capability of the component and accelerate FATIGUE. It would be better and more 'stress pure', to weld angled 'tabs' onto the mast so that the 'pull' is all on 'one single straight line' and then simply 'direct connect' the rigging to the 'tab' ... that 'tab' would be rotated 90° to what you have now and the 'thin crosssection' of the tab would be parallel to the long axis of the mast. .... I dont know if your mast is 'thick enough' to withstand such weldment. Seldén masts often use these 'tabs' for high stress connections. Tee Balls would be even better as they are not a 'constrained' join but are free to self-adjust (no flex).  

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With all of the boats that have been rigged as Roger's mast is has there ever been a failure of the tang at the masthead? On wooden masts the method sometimes involves looping the shroud cable completely aroung the mast. This would achieve the straight line pull that is ideal but it is not very neat. If the bend in the tang is a half inch radius the stress will be well distributed.  

Ross said: If the bend in the tang is a half inch radius the stress will be well distributed. Click to expand

RichH said: No it wont. Ross, its the flexure AT the bend that leads to the vulnerability to fatigue failure. Such bends are quite 'unpredictable' unless you test them the rigorously to failure. The 'simple' / classic beam formulas will show that typically such 'cantilever' structure can be a much as 1/4 as 'strong' in comparison to plain straight line stress. Click to expand

Ross - rhetorical and anecdotal questions always stand. Yes I had a tang failure on a wood mast on a small boat ... right at the 'bend' Ive had cranse iron failures ... right at the bend. Ive also had chainplate failure .... right at the bend. I'd be quite sure to bet that many of the 'smiley toothed face' symbols you see on nautical charts are due to 'structural failures' where someone used cook-book values and directly applied them to complicated structure. <g> ;-)  

RichH said: I disagree with the design!!!! Click to expand

Just thought I'd chime in: NO! one single piece of 3/8" will be perfect. yes it will stress but you will play hell stressing it to failure (the bolts would fail first). DO NOT "sandwich" 3/16" together as it will have the same effect as putting your thru-fit in a shear.  

Sounds like a prudent or smart move to make for the32' Endeavour ( ref: white hull green stripe ) Do you keep her on a mooring? Beefing those up will provide more strength from back and fourth wave action. Btw, whats her name? Mighty fine boat you got there...  

If you are committed to the tang arrangement then I Agree w/ jake. SINGLE piece of 3/8 will better resist flexure than 2 pieces of 3/16". Also agree to help with flexure resistance a near perfect alignment angle is needed. ;-)  

I like Rich's idea, but rather than welding it to the mast, how about using the existing tang connection holes? In either case, Rich's or tangs (which I have), I much prefer having a standard toggle / marine eye/ jaw set up vs. T-ball fittings. The T-balls weren't still available for my last boat and having a solid toggle on the mast would enable you to change the more fatigue prone part of the rig easily and more often.  

The bend will likely be around 12 degrees, Just the slope from the spreader to the masthead. rather easily determined and measured during fabrication.  

BobM said: I like Rich's idea, but rather than welding it to the mast, how about using the existing tang connection holes? Click to expand

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Replacing Tang Assemblies

Useful tips from Andrew Cross on rig maintenance. Originally published in BWS.

As I hoisted myself up the mast I could see rust stains on the lower starboard shroud tang and when it reached eye level I quickly noticed small hairline cracks emanating from the rust spots. There was no need for a magnifying glass to see if these cracks were superficial blemishes or deeper fractures. Cracks in anything metal on a sailboat are not good, and being on a key part of the rig, these were in a particularly critical spot. And though the apparent severity of the tiny cracks probably wasn’t going to take the rig down in a blow tomorrow, replacing them became a priority on my to do list.

Just a few years earlier, the previous owner of our Grand Soleil 39, Yahtzee , had pulled the rig and beefed it up to go offshore prior to a two-year cruise from the Pacific Northwest to Mexico, the South Pacific and back. In that time the rig had collected its fair share of salt and the elbows of these tangs obviously didn’t take the exposure well. Interestingly, though, a professional inspection of the rig only revealed this one weak spot. It must have been some anomaly about that particular set of tangs that caused them to rust.

After consulting with my friend, rigging specialist Cliff Hennen at West Marine Rigging Seattle, we got new port and starboard lower tang assemblies ordered from LeFiell Manufacturing and I planned to do a full tuning of the rig after replacing them.

The tang assemblies on Yahtzee’s mast are through-bolted instead of being connected with T-ball terminals or other types of fittings that fit into a hole in the mast. This makes the overall job slightly more difficult as there are a few more parts involved while working up on the rig.

I started the job by completely loosening the forward and aft lower shrouds on both sides to ensure there would be no tension on the old fittings as I went to remove them. I then hoisted myself to the first set of spreaders and got settled in to remove the through bolt and tangs. Most through-bolted tangs have a compression sleeve around the bolt inside the mast that won’t allow you to over tighten the bolt and bend the mast. Some of these compression sleeves are held in place inside the mast and others are not, and unfortunately, there is only one way to find out. If you are not sure, be ready with a dowel or something similar to take the place of the bolt and hold the sleeve. Otherwise, the compression sleeve may drop to the bottom of the mast, which can be extremely difficult to retrieve.

When I was back in place on the rig I went through the opposite procedure of taking the tangs apart. When the through bolt was in place with the new tangs I applied some blue Loctite to the threads and tightened down a Nylock nut. It is important here to use a new Nylock as the nylon collar in the old nut has been damaged and won’t offer as much friction.

Replacing the tang assemblies on our mast actually turned out to be the easiest job of my entire rigging project. Tuning, on the other hand, would take a bit longer.

Yahtzee has a double spreader rig with cap shrouds, continuous intermediate shrouds, forward and aft lower shrouds, a headstay, removable inner forestay and a single insulated backstay. Before beginning the tuning process I loosened all the shrouds, slightly eased the backstay, removed the inner forestay and left the forestay at its current setting.

Prior to starting the tune at deck level I went aloft to do a masthead to deck inspection of every fitting, pin, terminal and connection for signs of corrosion or fatigue. I also unwrapped the spreader boots to check the spreader ends and make adjustments as needed. It is important that the spreaders bisect the shrouds at equal angles and that the spreader ends are securely fastened to the shrouds. Having a spreader pop off a shroud in heavy weather is a quick way to lose a rig.

When tuning any rig, the goal is to get the mast in column from top to bottom, so I started by adjusting the cap shrouds first to get the masthead on centerline. Before tightening either shroud, though, I attached Loos gauges to both sides so I could check the tension as I worked back and forth. Many people successfully use the halyard method of measuring turnbuckles when tightening a rig, but I’ve found that Loos gauges are far more accurate. When I was ready to begin tightening the turnbuckles, I started on one side and gave it a few turns, then moved to the other side and gave it the same amount of turns. Once the shrouds started to tighten I looked up the mainsail track to make sure the mast was straight and checked the Loos gauges as I worked back and forth until I got to about 20 percent of the shrouds breaking strength.

When the cap shrouds were properly tensioned I moved to the forward lower shrouds and repeated the process above. The reason for tensioning these before the intermediates and aft lowers is to pull the middle of the mast forward to build in some prebend. Putting prebend in the mast will help it flex forward instead of back, which will make the mainsail flatter and keep the boat balanced in a fresh breeze. My final number for the forward lowers ended up at 14 to 15 percent. After doing the forward lowers I tensioned the aft lowers. These don’t need to be as tight as their counterparts, as they are not pulling the mast forward so I aimed to get them at about 10 to 12 percent. Lastly, I tightened the intermediates where I was mostly looking to keep the mast directly in column between the masthead and the tangs for the lower shrouds, and hit about 10 percent of breaking strength on the Loos gauge.

Overall, this tuning process was not hard, especially because I had the gauges, but it did take a fair amount of time as I worked back and forth on each set of shrouds to get the proper tension I needed and to keep the mast straight.

DYNAMIC TUNING Whenever tuning a rig it is important to keep in mind that the final tensions you get to, whether on a Loos gauge or otherwise, are always a rough starting point. The real test of how well your rig is tuned is decided when you get out on the water in a good 10 to 15-knot breeze and see how the mast behaves. This is called a dynamic tune and is just as essential as what you did at the dock, if not more.

When tuning underway, I like to start close hauled and tack back and forth to see how the mast looks under different loads before making any adjustments. In general, your leeward shrouds should never be fully slack when sailing close hauled in a stiff breeze and you’ll be able to see that pretty quickly.

To check your work from earlier, look to make sure the prebend that you put in the mast is still there. If not, you may need to tension the forward lowers a bit more. Next, go to the mast and sight up the mainsail track like you did when tuning the rig at the dock. Look to see how the mast is bending, if at all. If the middle of the mast is falling to leeward you probably need to tighten the intermediates and lowers. It’s ok for the top of the mast to fall slightly to leeward, but not much. If it looks wrong, it probably is, so go ahead and tighten the cap shroud. If you do decide to tighten anything, always do it on the leeward side so you aren’t fighting against the loaded rig. Trying to tighten turnbuckles under tension will be hard, but could also result in damaging the threads.

Inspecting and caring for your sailboat’s rig is essential to keeping a well-maintained and seaworthy cruising boat. And while it is important to have your rig examined by a professional, especially if it is a complicated setup, the average boat owner can actually do much of the work. Just make sure to give yourself a good amount of time, as this is one of those projects that will take longer than you think. But hey, at least the final step involves sailing.

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