Have you ever seen a mast bend opposite of the spreaders?
I have, not too fun either. Hopefully you will have solutions for me.
I have only had this boat, a G-Force 21, for one month. Sailed it twice, both in races. The first time I sailed it the mast did everything correctly, so much so that I took the over-rotator arm off as it tangled on the Jib line every other tack. I never had problems with the mast over-rotating going to weather, or under rotating down wind. Now I only had 190 + 95 pounds on the wire, and it was blowing 15-22mph.
I took the rotator off before this weekends race.
When we were going to weather double trapped we noticed the jib flapping and the main twisting off in a very unusual way, and as gusts were hitting us, some as high as 20+ I cracked off the main. We looked up and to our horror the mast was over-rotated 180 degrees, and inverted opposite of the spreader configuration then bent back in the correct shape from the hounds up as we had a good bit of downhaul on.
I cant beleive, nor could my crew(Jake Kohl and Tommy Metts) that it did not snap in half. I have never seen any metal bend like that and come back straight. We rigged a rotation limiter and stayed off the wire, somewhat nursing the boat to the finish. It still didnt behave correctly when I cracked off the main sheet.
so what is the solution?
Tighter diamond wires?
Less rotation( I usually sail to weather with the rotator pointing at the shrouds)?

My understanding is this is the same extrusion as the NACRA 6.0- and 31.5 ft, one set of diamonds.

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

David Mosley
www.seacats.org