Top Spreaders
Printed From: myHanse.com
Category: Hints & Tips
Forum Name: 415/418
Forum Description: 415/418 Hints, Tips and News
URL: https://www.myhanse.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=12335
Printed Date: 27 March 2026 at 03:41
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 12.06 - https://www.webwizforums.com
Topic: Top Spreaders
Posted By: Antsy
Subject: Top Spreaders
Date Posted: 08 November 2020 at 21:42
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I have just had a rigger do a tune-up on my mast rigging and he found the top stbd spreader had fractured close to the mast and a piece of spreader approx 75mm long was just hanging on by a small amount. Selden say they are not warranting and that a rope / halyard must have caught around it. We are coming up for 2 years and feel that it is a warranty issue as the other spreader is showing signs of stress ( whitening around the stress area ). The rigger who is very experienced said that previous spreaders had 2 bolts holding the spreader to the mast fitting and now it has been reduced to one. Has anyone checked their rigging and found anything similar? The other explanation given is that the sail has been resting against the spreader and stay and has caused this. My concern is that the other spreader is showing signs of stress. |
Replies:
Posted By: Matt1
Date Posted: 09 November 2020 at 09:54
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Hi - Interesting. Do you have any pictures? Will you have any pictures after it has been replaced. I'll check mine in the spring. I can't visualise a Halyard getting caught round the spreader causing this to be honest ------------- Hanse 418 #64 EmBer. Hamble, UK |
Posted By: TouchOfGrey
Date Posted: 09 November 2020 at 13:41
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Hi Antsy, Will check my spreaders coming weekend. My boat is onshore and stored in a hall. The mast removed and spreaders are in my boat. Can you send an picture of your top spreaders, the one with the damage and the other with the stress marks? thanks, Henk ------------- Henk Touch of Grey H418 #028 |
Posted By: S&J
Date Posted: 09 November 2020 at 14:39
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The bolts (in fact clevis pins) that connect the spreader to the mast are pretty substantial (on my 2015 Selden rig). The outer ends have a shaped plastic endpiece that is clamped to the stay and is held into the spreader with an allen-key type grub screw. Difficult to imagine what "stress" you might have unless the spreader was forced forwards or backwards against the mast fitting, which would normally not be possible with the stay under load. Is it possible that this was damaged when the mast and rigging was removed/transported/stored? ------------- H458 #159 Primal Mediterranean cruising |
Posted By: Matt1
Date Posted: 09 November 2020 at 17:01
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Certainly these C section Selden masts have been around a while now (I had one of the early ones on my last boat back in 2006) and if there were a generic fault you would expect it to be occurring in many masts, especially with the narrower shroud angles associated on boats with deck chainplates. By comparison the rig loads on Hanses would be much lower as they have such a wide shroud base Will be interesting to see some pictures and find out what has happened. ------------- Hanse 418 #64 EmBer. Hamble, UK |
Posted By: Matt1
Date Posted: 09 November 2020 at 17:41
So envious :( This is my poor boat out in all weathers for the winter  ------------- Hanse 418 #64 EmBer. Hamble, UK |
TouchOfGrey wrote:Posted By: Tranquillity
Date Posted: 09 November 2020 at 21:28
| Matt, Sailed past EmBer weekend before lockdown and she was very well put to bed for winter rather than my mad rush to get sails off day before we are allowed out again in a month!! |
Posted By: Antsy
Date Posted: 10 November 2020 at 01:18
 Spreader problem |
Posted By: Antsy
Date Posted: 10 November 2020 at 01:24
Photo of Port spreader but stress is not easy to see here.
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Posted By: Breathe
Date Posted: 10 November 2020 at 02:07
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Hi, I had my rig professionally inspected at around two years old. The report makes no mention of any issues with the spreaders, but those photos are a concern so I will have a look over the next couple of weeks. Thanks for posting this. Gordon
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Posted By: Antsy
Date Posted: 10 November 2020 at 02:29
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This is a 2 year old boat and I do not believe that the break came from transporting as it would not have been assembled. What is evident that I can see on the port one is the fit of the Stem ball support is very tight and the wedge effect with forward load would be magnified. It is a very long spreader and we did get in a 40knot plus gust on port tack with full main up during a race and broke our carbon spinnaker pole while goose-winging and trying to release the sheets which were caught in the parrot beak. On the port spreader photo you can see the aluminium stress at the point of break. Perhaps it is enough to break it, perhaps not. Once broken, then a halyard could then get caught behind the inner edge. As I am an engineer I have access to FEA and solid modelling so I will have a bit of a play with leverage. I would guess at the spreader length being about 1100-1200 long and the pin/pivot point to the fracture is only about 50 mm so that is a force multiplier of about 24 times. |
Posted By: P&J
Date Posted: 10 November 2020 at 03:57
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Thank you for the photos. I will check my spreaders in April 2021 when hopefully I can get back to our 418. Best regards Peter
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Posted By: Matt1
Date Posted: 10 November 2020 at 07:35
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Wow! Thanks for sending the pictures, although I'm not quite seeing it in the port spreader, but take your word for it. I'm no expert but to me that looks like some kind of collision / impact damage - especially to have flexed the torn part so much. My money would be on the crane during the original stepping of the mast or maybe another yachts mast if you have ever had someone rafted alongside you? (potentially that could have happened without you even being onboard at the time). It does look like you have had a lucky escape! Good luck getting it resolved. ------------- Hanse 418 #64 EmBer. Hamble, UK |
Posted By: Matt1
Date Posted: 10 November 2020 at 07:37
Thanks Jon! You probably thought I had been burgled! …..it's a bit OCD even for me to take the wheels off....but I won't be using the boat until the spring and sadly there has been a lot of theft and vandalism on the river lately :( ------------- Hanse 418 #64 EmBer. Hamble, UK |
Posted By: Antsy
Date Posted: 10 November 2020 at 20:32
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Matt1, There has been no collision, no rafting up, it stays in a marina. It could only have happened during sailing and there is a possibility of fracturing first and then subsequent movement. Without a metallurgist examining it I am not able to conclude a single episode break or from fatigue. The point is that if the clearance around the lower Stay hole reinforcing were larger then any forward force on the outer point of the spreader would have resulted in compression where the inner point of the broken piece would stop against the mast pad creating a different force diagram rather than wedging at the broken point causing tensile stress. This could be a case of manufacturing tolerances causing an isolated incident. The point of posting this on MyHanse is for me to find out if there are other incidents and to alert other owners of a possible area which should be checked at least annually. As there is no complete break the strut is still in compression and the outer stay still supporting the mast.
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Posted By: J&J
Date Posted: 10 November 2020 at 21:58
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Hi I had a similar failure earlier this year fortunately I saw that the section had bent back and thus spotted it before any rig failure . Good Chanse is 2014 launch and we use her a lot , on the advice of the rigger I replaced both sides . The parts were easy to source from Seldon . I had noticed my lower stays were quite slack and in fact had been like that from new , the rigger has set the stays up quite a lot tighter now . These rigs do have a tendency to pump ( flex forward in the centre of the mast ) when slamming into a sea and I put the fail down to motoring into such a seaway when coming back from The Bay of Islands this year . I now ensure that in similar conditions that I ensure I have plenty of backstay tension on and / or sail
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Posted By: Matt1
Date Posted: 11 November 2020 at 08:32
Thanks for sharing :-) you will definitely have me going aloft in the spring to check mine ------------- Hanse 418 #64 EmBer. Hamble, UK |
Posted By: maggie.scheunert
Date Posted: 21 January 2022 at 15:45
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Hey there, We recently acquired a 415, and upon going up the mast we found the exact same damage as in your picture. (Had to rub my eyes to make sure I wasn't seeing the same picture!) Wondering if you ever found out what caused it, or had any trouble fixing it? By chance was it the upper port-side spreader? We are trying to get a replacement one, and hoping nothing goes wrong in the meantime. Any tips would be super helpful! Thanks Maggie |
Posted By: J&J
Date Posted: 01 March 2022 at 23:02
| Hi we had the same failure 2 years ago on our 2014 415 . Our rigger sourced 2 new top spreader arms from Seldon . Our rig was set up quite loose and is now much tighter , the leeward lower shroud was quite loose before when sailing , this is no longer the case . I believe the failure was this looseness this allows the mast to flex forward when you are pounding into the waves , the mast pumps forward and back and that is what cause the Aluminum to peel away. Its definitely something to watch for |
Posted By: Jenesis
Date Posted: 26 March 2022 at 06:15
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I have also found, through a professional rig check for race/insurance purposes, a broken spreader. Port side, upper. No known cause. The rig had a serious workout in a race with 45+ knots behind for 20 hours or so with three reefs but didn't show this break after the race. No collisions, no known ropes caught, etc. No stock in Australia, so had to wait for one to be imported. 2016 415
 after the race. |
Posted By: Mark&Catherine
Date Posted: 26 March 2022 at 08:51
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looks to me as though forward pressure on the spreader cracked it and only then would a halyard have enough force to pull it forward like that. Do you use any asymmetrics? Maybe if so with a lose backstay or too little cap shroud tension you might be able to pull the spreader forward enough to crack it??? Just speculation I'm afraid ------------- 385 ubulukutu sail number GBR 3350L in Turkey and Greece with Mark and Catherine |
Posted By: asimo
Date Posted: 25 January 2025 at 22:38
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Jenesis, Wondering if you could share with us the ball park cost of the repair? and does the mast need to come out for the repair to happen? I have a 400e:2007 and there is a crack in one of the spreaders in line with the pin located away from the mast (the one on the right of your photo). Background: My rig was re-done 3 years ago. The boat motored from Sydney to Melbourne, and was used lightly i.e. sails up maybe a dozen times since then. I recently purchased the boat (and did not do a rig inspection...thinking nothing much would have happened in the last three years..doh!). I had a rigger go up to check the rigging (routine, no apparent issues) and found a crack in the spreader at the pin. ------------- H400e - DE HANJ0344K708 |
Posted By: Ratbasher
Date Posted: 26 January 2025 at 06:43
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Asimo - just in case you don't get any local or more relevant reply, I had to replace all 4 spreaders and have mast-doublers fitted in Nov 2022. Ex-VAT UK costs then for supply & fitting were: Spreaders £1635 Doublers £1050 Sheaves £100 The cause was that the mast wall was not strong enough to take the compression loads, presumably compounded by cyclic loading. The doublers are simply plates rivetted onto the mast to spread the loads around the spreaders. Hope this may provide some sort of ball-park estimate for you.  ------------- H400 (2008) 'Wight Leopard' Gosport, UK |
Posted By: Jenesis
Date Posted: 06 February 2025 at 00:46
| Replacement spreader cost AU$706 including international freight, plus labour to obtain and install in place AU$1045. Plus freight from Sydney $35. This was in March 2022. |
Posted By: Matt1
Date Posted: 06 February 2025 at 08:14
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Interestingly this is now a problem (in a much greater scale!) with the Globe 5.80 transatlantic race. Hopefully I can post the speculation below Entrant UPDATE 1:2:2025...SPREADER CRACKS...in the past Globe 580 Transats, two 580's have experienced spreaders cracks...now RENAUD has discovered the same. Replacements have been organized from FRANCE Selden to ANTIGUA...all entrants with SELDEN masts have been advised to check their spreaders...the cause may be overloading from the spinnakers or pressure from the mainsail pushing the tip of the 29 degree swept back spreaders forward. clearly the forward tip of the spreader is point loading as it flexes forward. SELDEN use a short stainless steel internal extrusion inside the spreader going through the mast that incorporates the attachment of the lower shroud that is not associated with the spreader so there is no weakening of the rigging there. SELDEN masts are NOT compulsory. A Builder can make their own mast with a class approved section...or buy one from approved suppliers..SPARCRAFT supply 580 rigs as fitted on TREKKA , but costs nearly three times the price. Latest post from Renaud : During regular boat inspection I discovered yesterday at the end of the day my split starboard arrow bar. That's a blow to the morale. Fortunately the alizés are not too strong and with the help of Ariane my boat manager and Don the replacement parts are on order. I don't really understand how this could have been done because we made mainly starboard amure. There have been a few shortcuts to the south but never quite strong. Finally we can all talk about it in Antigua. #mgr2025 #g580t #CG580 ------------- Hanse 418 #64 EmBer. Hamble, UK |