Old tower's

[backman]

I'm dealing shortly with 5 separate cracks in my 10 year old/4000 hr+ CC28 tower.

Both forward legs have cracked at the base, the main starboard forward arm has a crack 3/4 way around and both of the cross pieces which support it have cracks developing.

I also cracked the ring that supports the tower box last year at the hole where the spreader light power lead exits. That was a 500$ fix; the upcoming one is estimated at 2K due to travel time for the marine welders who come from J&J Marine 80 miles from my boat.

I had a long talk w. J&J who say
1) the tower is incorrectly designed for the stress loads as there is no for/aft bracing
2) there's probably many more stress cracks throughout other arms and welds of the tower I can't see
3) they will guarantee their welds, gussets and collars, but can't assure me the rest of the tower will remain solid
4) in general this is going to be an ongoing work in progress and I should expect more of the same as the aluminum weakens over time and stress load.

Am I alone in having tower issues and is there a fix anyone has added to remove some of the fore and aft stress loads?

[Tswann]

Tower design

The tower design has evolved quite a bit over the last 10 years. What I would do is call Mac or Keith and ask what specifically has been done in the newer boats (up to 2004 when they completely changed the tower design, pipe size, etc.) to correct for issues that came up. They will be able to assist your welder with placement of 'k' braces and such . . . While you are doing the work on the tower this would be the ideal time to 'update' since you will have probably unrigged the tower in prep for the work that you have to have done . . .

In general, the new tower config has virtually no motion in it (which causes aluminum stress/fatigue) but my 2001 had additional bracing incorporated to your tower design and I had no problems with it . . . . I did not have near the hours on my boat that you have on yours though!!!!

[backman]

K brace

I noted last year how the new 28 tower bracing addresses the fore and aft motion.

J&J is a well reputed tower builder/marine farbricator here in the NE and is pretty much *the* place where Oyster Harbor's millions of new Cabo's go to get towers added. They fixed some cracks in my tower 4-5 years ago and told me the tower needed the fore/aft bracing the new 28 towers now have.

I am not sure how economical it is for me to keep popping 1-2K into fix after fix/year after year versus biting the bullet and bringing the boat south to Layton's to be retowered some winter.

I'm very concerned about the hours on the boat with respect to repetitive metal fatigue on the tower. I'm also thinking about how I might put a vertical brace between the hardtop and the tower box to decreases the stresses that weight puts on the band around it and by assoication the rest of the tower.