[Rhodes22-list] Mast Bending With A Mast Head Rig

[Christine Allison]

<With respect, you are COMPLETELY WRONG when you say that the masts on
masthead rigged sailboats are only designed to be loaded & used in column
with no bend.  That statement has been patently false for at least 30
years.>

I will go along with you to this extent the  mast of ANY masthead rigged
boats with FORE and AFT lower shrouds is designed to stand in column.  This
stability is often a selling gambit. Look at the Cape Dorys...Westsails and
such

I would agree with you that a masthead rig with single lower shrouds
terminating in chain plate(s) in approx the same fore and aft position may
be bent.  Why not?

The fact remains that most all boats with "bendy" rigs are fractionally
rigged.  Having owned two bendy mast boats (fractional) and a CD-25
(masthead) with double lowers I prefer the double lowers.

For what it's worth I doubt if any reasonable amount of backstay tension
would have bent the mast on the CD-25.  I have not experimented with the
Rhodes.

Richard Smith