After we’d sailed our boat for a year, we decided to pull the mast and have the old paint blasted off so that we could recoat it. It turned out that it wasn’t just the paint that was in poor shape. As we started picking away at the old paint it became obvious that the mast was more corroded than we’d thought. Even worse, close inspection revealed cracks around a couple of the T-ball sockets on the mast. The rigger who came to check out the spar condemned it without hesitation. Should the surveyor have picked this up? Since the boat was on jackstands in a boatyard, he couldn’t go up the mast, and inspected the rig through binoculars. I would advise anyone buying a boat to inspect the rig scrupulously. Our new mast is beautiful, but it wasn’t cheap!
