Thanks, Harold.

As I look at my photo again, I will admit to not having given any thought to the purpose of that athwarthship pin just behind the cracked tang.

I am not near the boat to look right now. Does anyone know?

I completely agree. There are probably two factors here:

1. The hard spot from the weld that you mentioned, making the metal less malleable/more brittle in that area.

2. The fact that the geometry changes abruptly introduces a concentration of stresses. In 'pure' tension, that would not be such big deal, but the tang looks to be bent at an angle ever-so-slightly different than the forestay makes from the attachement to the masthead. That would mean each tensile load cycle on the forestay also introduces some slight bending moment on the tang, and guess where the weakest spot would be? - at that area that cracked.

Now that there is a crack, the stress concentration goes up radically and it would only be a mtter of time before failure.

Thanks, Carl.

BTW, I have received fast response from CY parts regarding the availability of the replacement, but no definitive answer yet. It appears like one may need to be fabricated, and with all due respect to CY, it would seem best for me to go directly to Garhauer for that, unless I find a very trusted local fabricator for that work.

I am told that I may HAVE to ship the cracked part to ensure exact hole placement. In this age of engineering drawings and interchangeable parts, that is a little surprising, but perhaps they have learned form experience that they cannot trust the parts are really to 'spec.'

Stu, that is an option. Getting it off the boat would allow me to make much more accurage measurements than with it on the boat surrounded by two bow rollers.

Major success!

With the help of a friend with thin arms, who is much more flexible than I am, we got the cracked stem fitting off in less than an hour. He dropped a few washers and one nut inside the boat, but I plan to replace all the fasteners anyway.

The hardest part was getting the fitting up and past the rub rail extrusion. There was temporary interference that a hammer eventually resolved with the aluminum losing the battle.

Now, I am shipping the part to Garhauer on Monday and I know they will come through for me. BTW, I asked about working to a drawing and they said it is still risky to do. I can handle the shipping cost and time, and that is what I will do.

I should also mention that Ken Roy at the Largo, FL location was super to work with. We traded 8 emails and one phone call inside of 48 hours and his only concern was that I got my problem solved.

I emailed Frank Butler and Gerry Douglass with my praise for Ken's efforts.

[QUOTE=LCBrandt;12020]Don't force it! Get a bigger hammer![/QUOTE]

LOL, Larry!

Jason,

Small cracks in the weld did not concern me, either, because the load is on the beefy tang in tension. BUT, at some point not too long ago the tang itself started cracking.

I would just check it every month or so.

My rig has a really beefy separate bow roller to starboard for the primary anchor and a less beefy roller to port for the secondary anchor. The stem fitting was a stand-alone piece.

Status Update:

The replacement part arrived from Garhauer just several business days after they received my old part for a reference; great service!. I had a brief phone call from the machinist (I assume) before they started work. He mentioned that they haven't made the fitting to the same geometry as mine from 1999 for quite a while.

The part looks very good, pics attached, but the holes in the horizontal strap are not quite lining up. I am glad the 5 holes that do the work are all perfect. I would like to say that the job is done, but my helper grabbed one of the old screws out of the bucket instead of the new ones I brought (my fault for leaving the old ones there) and just as we were finishing the hardest bolt to reach, the hex head sheared mostly off.

I have never seen this failure before. It did not torque off at the threads; a small part of the hex is still there and until I resolve that I cannot get the bolt in or out. My plan for tomorrow is to cut the hex off with a Dremel wheel and carry on.

The force should be in line with the tang, which is now 3/8 thick with no discontinuties to concentrate stress, compared to the old design which was 1/4 thick and had stress risers.

I (and apparently they) don't see the need for the gussets which didn't add much and, in fact, created the problem. I am getting ready to attempt completion in a short while.

Success - Finally!

I got the rest of the bolts secured and then tried to put the forestay/furler back in place. It turns out that no matter how much you loosen the backstay and despite tensioning the masthead forward with the spare Genoa halyard, you cannot make the toggle reach the stem head fitting.

So, I had to consult the manual for the Schaeffer 2100 furler, where I learned what to do to access the turnbuckle for the forestay. It is not so easy with the sail wrapped tightly around the furling foils, so I had to partially unfurl the sail by turning the furler by hand (like making a giant anaconda roll over multiple times). Then I was able to remove multiple fasteners and get to the turnbuckle. With that loose, getting the toggle back on the stem fitting was easy and then the project was all but over.

Details will be in a tech article that Association Members will be able to access.

When I had Garhauer fabricate a new stemhead fitting for me this winter, they said the new design eliminates the gusset since it didn't add any strength to the piece. As a mechanical engineer, I agree.