Repairing Bent Mast

Occasionally masts become bent for various reasons.  If they are badly kinked or 'point' bent this can be a difficult repair and may need an insert.  If the kink bend is in a high stress area(just above the mast hound or below the hound) to the base an insert is probably the only way to fix it.  Glenmore sailboats may have inserts left.

If the bend is a gradual one this is much easier to fix.  The extrusion is very flexible and can stand a fair bit of flexing so the trick is to determine where the gradual bend is and to reverse bend the mast using a picnic table, boat trailer or some rigid item you can insert the mast to the bent area and reverse bend it to straighten it.  Be sure to place rags or foam around the mast at the contact points when reverse bending or you will end up with dimples or even cause a kink bend.  Gradually increase your reverse flexing of the mast all the while checking to see progress made.  It may require a number of flexes to get it to straighten.  There is a big risk of breaking or kinking the mast so be careful.  New mast extrusions are expensive so if your mast has become badly bent it may be worth a try to straighten it.