Crossbeam Cracking Concerns

[wdrury]

Last summer I bought a 1971 E 32' she has been behaving beautifully since then. I'm currently sailing down the coast with a couple friends to the Bahamas while we all take time off college. The previous owner made the cracks in the cross beam apparent to us and had said they didn't get any bigger on him. I'm concerned that they have started to grow. I will post a picture and was just wondering if there was a way someone could tell from it 1) whether the suggested reinforcement had been done and 2) if the size of crack that I show is common to these boats and some sort of urgency thoughts on the matter. Whether we should get her mast down right away or if people sail for years with this type of cracking.

 

[wdrury]

Sorry about that here is a picture of the cracking and underneath support

 

[Loren Beach]

Supporting that Mast

The Google search engine has our site well-indexed.
I put in "ericsonyachts.org mast support E-32"
and got several good returns.
You may (or may not) have some restoration work ahead of you. Some parts of the job may take the boat out of commission for a week. Maybe.
I have not owned a 70's Ericson with the full frp liner and deck-stepped mast.

Pour yourself a cup of coffee and do some research and note taking.
Lots of owners here that love that design and have dome a lot restoration and upgrades on them.

http://www.ericsonyachts.org/infoexchange/showthread.php?1101-Mast-Step-Reinforcement&referrerid=28

http://www.ericsonyachts.org/infoexchange/showthread.php?9901-E32-2-mast-step-plate

http://www.ericsonyachts.org/infoexchange/showthread.php?10784-E-32-2-Mast-support&referrerid=28

In a perfect world (cyber version...) these threads would be integrated into a logical single one and an "article" created with many pictures.
And, Perhaps with some guitar chords...

"Alice's Restaurant" recounts Guthrie's true, but comically exaggerated, Thanksgiving Day adventure as a satirical, deadpan protest against the Vietnam War draft. On November 25, 1965, the 18-year-old Guthrie, in Great Barrington, Massachusetts on Thanksgiving break from college in Montana, and his friend Richard Robbins, 19, were arrested by police officer William "Obie" Obanhein for illegally dumping some of Alice's garbage in the nearby town of Stockbridge after discovering that the Great Barrington town dump was closed for the holiday. Two days later, they pleaded guilty in court before a blind judge, James E. Hannon. The song describes to ironic effect the arresting officer's frustration at this "typical case of American blind justice", in which the officer was prepared to present "27 8×10 color glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was to be used as evidence against us", only to have the judge enter the courtroom accompanied by a seeing-eye dog.

Sorry... it's yet another wet and rainy day in Portland and the boat is winterized and I have not had my morning coffee yet.....


Loren

"...You can get anything you want, at Ericson's Restaurant..."

 

[wdrury]

This is great. Thanks a million I will definitely sit down and have a read through. I'm certainly hoping that since it hasn't actually sagged yet I should be able to nip it in the bud with some extra supports. A related question although in a slightly different vein, and this is more from my inexperience with sailing boat building etc. is a dramatic failing likely? Is the support system likely to go from no sag to splitting the deck and a stick loss or will I most likely get a sag first. I guess I'm wondering whether the support system is brittle and will break or if it will more likely bend in but still keep the mast out of the cabin.

 

[Loren Beach]

This is great. Thanks a million I will definitely sit down and have a read through. I'm certainly hoping that since it hasn't actually sagged yet I should be able to nip it in the bud with some extra supports. A related question although in a slightly different vein, and this is more from my inexperience with sailing boat building etc. is a dramatic failing likely? Is the support system likely to go from no sag to splitting the deck and a stick loss or will I most likely get a sag first. I guess I'm wondering whether the support system is brittle and will break or if it will more likely bend in but still keep the mast out of the cabin.

I really (!) doubt that any sudden change will find the spar inside the cabin... but, OTOH, these problems do not self-repair either.
Our prior boat was not an Ericson but did have a mast stepped on the house top, with a support post inside that rested on the frp sole/liner molding.

That cabin top showed a little sag over the ten years that we owned it, matched by a little sole sag. I found that it needed some better support under the sole. i.e. the post and cabin top were solid, but that sole part of the interior molding had yielded about an eight of an inch or a tad more. Another owner of a sister ship had some rot in the coring right under the mast base and his cabin top gel coat showed some cracks where the settling was happening.
I suspect that any of these things might happen with an Ericson or any other boat with similar engineering. That type of design has a step with bolts or screws down into the coring under the spar -- that coring was often metal or plywood, depending on the builder -- all great IF !00% protected from water intrusion.

(While our present boat has a keel-stepped spar, those have their own potential problems that can develop over the decades, too...)

My paranoid suspicion is that you are going to need to, at some point, remove the spar, renovate the cabin top coring, and reinforce or upgrade the interior support post and associated structure. But having never owned that model, it's just a suspicion -- sort of a "SWAG."

Opinions rendered on the hour, deposit $.01 please.


Loren

 

[wdrury]

Once again thanks a lot! I will definitely look into that next time we have her on the hard. For the time being, sans sag, I will but on one of those elbow supports as "Matey" did and hope that holds me over for a little while. You've been amazingly helpful let me know where to ship the penny

 

[Sean Engle]

View attachment 15631
Sorry about that here is a picture of the cracking and underneath support

Yikes! :0

 

[wdrury]

Yikes! :0

Haha Uh oh that bad!?

 

[tenders]

I don't think you have an imminent problem as long as the geometry of the door is OK.

My '69 32 is built like yours but does not have that wood crossbeam. I've had the boat since 1991 and a slightly less-prominent crack had been apparent and patched even before I bought it. A few years ago the door to the head started binding as I tried to close it, so I knew the overhead was starting to sag a little. Last spring I loosened the shrouds and used a bottle jack to raise the overhead a little, and slipped a 1/4" piece of G10 where your wooden beam is. This season it still sagged, and it's clear the mast step needs some reinforcement and I needed to take the mast down anyway to repaint it. I'm planning to do the reinforcement from above, replacing whatever is under the mast step spanning the mahogany beams in the cabin with thick G10.

If you're looking for some peace of mind, consider replacing that wood crosspiece with a similar piece of G10. (Half-inch thickness, perhaps?) If you loosen the shrouds a lot, you can raise the roof a few eighths of an inch with a car jack and some well-placed 2x4s. I would be surprised if the G10 cost you more than $100 - there are shops on eBay that sell small pieces of it. It is incredibly strong, but requires a carbon-tipped blade to cut. Once you have that, it is pretty easy to work with, and this comes from someone who has pretty limited woodworking skills.

 

[wdrury]

Sorry for the delay in reply, just did the Bahamas cross and the service is spotty. Wow that is amazingly helpful and I'm glad to know I'm not the only one with the issue! I will certainly do that. G10 I will try to get a hold of some. Thanks a million.

 

[Christian Williams]

And when you get some time, I'm sure we'd all appreciate hearing the story of Maine to Bahamas in an E32.