[...]How big of a deal would it be to continue to sail this boat without a compression tube
Big deal. The compression tube prevents the beam from collapsing. You *need* one, the beam is not designed to take all the pressure from the mast.
I've got a 5.2, but I've never taken the dolphin striker assembly apart, so I may be out of line, but I don't see how the crossbar is taking
that much downward force from the mast. I'd have assumed that the compression tube was so that you could crank the two nuts towards eachother without crushing the crossbar, not to provide support for the weight of the mast.
Hopefully I won't have to find out any time soon...at least not the hard way.
