Warning to Sunbeam owners

[bartyboy69]

We have a 1990 built Sunbeam Yacht. We recently cracked to bottom of the mast where it sleeves over the mast base. We thought it might be due to age and miles, but as it turns out the mast base never did fit the internal of the mast properly and the builders just added a 2mm stainless steel sleeve around the mast base so the mast would be a snug fit. So you don’t have to be a genius to work out what happened. The mast was actually only sitting on a fraction of the base and corrosion built up between the stainless sleeve and the mast base and cracked the mast. Luckily we were in the Gibraltar straits heading to the Canaries and had the opportunity to fix it, that’s another story. So if you have a Sunbeam or looking at one, do your homework thoroughly before you cross any oceans. All this said and done, even with this poor method, if proper maintenance was maintained with the base removed every 6-7 years it might not have been a issue , but it should not have been an issue to start with