I broke my mast on the weekend and was wondering what went wrong.

No stays or diamonds broke, I believed the mast was in good order but old, it was painted (which I believe is very bad for old aluminium masts that aren't necessarily marine grade material) and the mast broke almost exactly in half way.

I'll describe the situation:

It was a little gusty and breezy but probably wasn't above 20 knots. My crew and I (70kg and 65kg) were both on trapeze and we were travelling along well on a tight, two-sail reach, one hull just clear of the waves most of the time. We hadn't sorted out mast rotation or downhaul (only just left shore about 500m behind) but had moved the traveller about half-way down track. The main was slightly luffing, jib was powered up nicely. The main has a square head on it that adds at most 1sqm of sail area. About 30 seconds before it went I noticed that it was certainly flexing more than I'd seen before. When it broke, it bent away from the wind (leeward side of mast) at the centre (reverse of what I would've expected).

I've had the boat pressed much more than this previously without any sign of trouble. My current thinking is that there were a few contributing factors:

1. Mast was old and its time had come.
2. Mast rotation was wrong. (Don't recall what position it was actually in.)
3. Mainsheet tension was pulling on leech and pulling top of mast aft
4. Crew is too heavy...need to ditch the heavy-butt crew and get a light weight girlfriend
5. Diamond tension was all wrong.

Any hints or past experiences would be greatly appreciated before I build a new mast.

I understand the association sells sections, does anyone have a price for these?

I'll purchase a tuning guide from the association soon and maybe that will help.

thanks for reading my rant,
Nick.