Cal 31 - Lower Shroud Connection to Mast

Greetings, My new-to-me 31 came with an oversized, uninstalled, brand new set of shrouds. The mast ends have beefy eye fittings. The existing lowers terminate with jaws that connect to triangular plates (port and stbd) that are bolted together through the mast. I am wondering if the intent was to do away with the plates and run the bolt directly through the four eyes (two eyes on each side, of course). :-) Any thoughts or ideas are most welcomed. Cheers, --Bob M

Minor correction. The plates beneath the spreaders, which connect the lower shrouds to the mast, are rectangular, not triangular.

As always, Bob, there are buts and ifs. On some boat Cal models the spreader bracket is through-bolted, particularly for the bolt that holds the lower shrouds. If there is a hex head on one side of the mast and a nut on the other, you have a single long bolt that has a spacer inside the mast (to keep the mast from caving in). That spacer gets compressed over time (and even bent) making the bolt hard to remove. The story continues… So how did they get the spacer in there? Well, the hole in one side of the mast is larger (the OD of the spacer). However, you cannot get to that hole unless you remove the spreader bracket on that side. Once you do that, you no longer have any support for the upper shroud on that side. I think you can see where I am going with this. There are only a few mechanical things you want to do to a mast without taking it down. Don’t forget to use the Lanocote (or equivalent) where stainless meets aluminum. Cheers, Anyway Charlie Annapolis From: Ca… [at] yahoogroups.com [mailto:Ca… [at] yahoogroups.com] Sent: Thursday, November 16, 2017 9:00 PM To: Ca… [at] yahoogroups.com Subject: [Cal_Boats] Re: Cal 31 - Lower Shroud Connection to Mast Minor correction. The plates beneath the spreaders, which connect the lower shrouds to the mast, are rectangular, not triangular. _____ Posted by: mo… [at] yahoo.com <mailto:mo… [at] yahoo.com> _____ <http://geo.yahoo.com/serv?s=97476590/grpId=16485695/grpspId=1705065792/msgId=43887/stime=1510884010>

On 11/16/2017 9:26 PM, 'Charlie Husar' hu… [at] gmail.com [Cal_Boats] wrote: > > > As always, Bob, there are buts and ifs. On some boat Cal models the > spreader bracket is through-bolted, particularly for the bolt that > holds the lower shrouds. If there is a hex head on one side of the > mast and a nut on the other, you have a single long bolt that has a > spacer inside the mast (to keep the mast from caving in). That spacer > gets compressed over time (and even bent) making the bolt hard to remove. > The other impediment is from corrosion--stainless bolt and tang plus aluminum spacer and mast produce some very tenacious corrosion products. As far as I can recall, I used anhydrous lanolin between bolt & spacer when I upgraded the spreader bracket on my Cal 20. Chris Campbell >

Thank you for the replies. After some research it looks like I should use a double jaw toggle to connect the eye of the new shroud to the eye in the existing shroud plate. http://hayn.com/marine/rigging/tj.html#djt http://hayn.com/marine/rigging/tj.html#djt

Charlie,Next question is, how would you get that bolt out. Mine's frozen, even tho the bolt and nut seems to be made of aluminum alloy (of course, the tangs are stainless). So when I break my spreaders, which I've done for the second time during a head on collision with another boat's mast in Oct., I've sleeved the new, or more recently broken, spreader on using a short slightly larger tube with an ID equal to the spreader's OD. And this time I glued it in using roofer's urethane mastic, afraid that the epoxy would cause severe corrosion between the two tube's slightly different alloy composition...that's what happened the first time. The tube ends on the inside actually buldged out swelling the outside tube. So the mastic-glue will hopefully act as a dielectric. By the way, I repaired the bottom of my mast, which became severly corroded, by wrapping several layers of kevlar cloth around the base of the mast, and epoxying it with West Sytstems. It's held now for over a 15 years. Cheaper than a new mast, and where would I even find a tapered stick like the original Cal 24-1 has? Jerry of Shpritz On Thursday, November 16, 2017 6:26 PM, "'Charlie Husar' hu… [at] gmail.com [Cal_Boats]" <Ca… [at] yahoogroups.com> wrote: As always, Bob, there are buts and ifs. On some boat Cal models the spreader bracket is through-bolted, particularly for the bolt that holds the lower shrouds. If there is a hex head on one side of the mast and a nut on the other, you have a single long bolt that has a spacer inside the mast (to keep the mast from caving in). That spacer gets compressed over time (and even bent) making the bolt hard to remove. The story continues… So how did they get the spacer in there? Well, the hole in one side of the mast is larger (the OD of the spacer). However, you cannot get to that hole unless you remove the spreader bracket on that side. Once you do that, you no longer have any support for the upper shroud on that side. I think you can see where I am going with this. There are only a few mechanical things you want to do to a mast without taking it down. Don’t forget to use the Lanocote (or equivalent) where stainless meets aluminum. Cheers, AnywayCharlieAnnapolis From: Ca… [at] yahoogroups.com [mailto:Ca… [at] yahoogroups.com] Sent: Thursday, November 16, 2017 9:00 PM To: Ca… [at] yahoogroups.com Subject: [Cal_Boats] Re: Cal 31 - Lower Shroud Connection to Mast Minor correction. The plates beneath the spreaders, which connect the lower shrouds to the mast, are rectangular, not triangular. 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