I ordered a mast gate from mastgates.com this June before departing on our summer cruise. I don't want to dissuade you from them yet because the jury is still out (I'm working with Tom to hopefully get it to work) but I haven't been able to make it usable yet.
The design and installation of the mast gate is more complex than I expected, and basically if you don't very precisely position the metal, the sail slugs will just pull right out, or get stuck. This is very inconvenient when reefing in 20 kts with steep confused waves (wind against current in a Strait). Apparently the order packer sent the wrong kind of rivets with my mast gate, so Tom sent the correct ones which I'll try out in August now that we're back. He prefers plastic reusable rivets over tapping machine screws. I'm not sure the new rivets are going to fix the issue though, because the thin SS plates are difficult to shape correctly to the mast slot, and they're fairly distorted now from the hammering (which you're supposed to do to shape them) and sail slides ripping out. His design was custom fit to the 7" long slot of the LF38 mast, but the relatively flimsy SS flexes or bends a bit in the middle which can result in slugs pulling out. The instructions also require dremeling away some of the aluminum lip of the mast's slot, to get the gate to fit snugger, which is a bit of a tricky process to do precisely. Tom has offered to make a new top cover plate though which might be better. -Patrick 1984 LF 38 Seattle, WA > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > From: Eric Frank <efran...@mac.com> > To: cnc-list@cnc-list.com > Cc: > Bcc: > Date: Sun, 23 Jul 2017 07:59:42 -0400 > Subject: Re: Stus-List mast gate > Bill, > I installed a mast gate from Tom Luque at mastgate.com in 2013. At that > time he was making them of quite thin SS, for use in smaller boats, and it > bent when I put in a double reef on the main. So had a friend machine a > beefier one from aluminum and that has worked well. Tom was interested in > the design, so I sent him the design drawings and a picture: > > https://www.dropbox.com/s/wobu6jod6x9lonb/MastTrack.pdf?dl=0 > > Tom recently started fabricating them using my design and I think is > making them with a 3D printer - don’t know the material. I can send you the > drawings I made with all the dimensions, and that would be right for your > boat as our boats are identical - CC35 MkII. > > Eric Frank > Cat's Paw > Mattapoisett, MA >
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