by Mike Gillum » Sun May 25, 2014 1:47 pm
As far as I'm aware the only option for a new tapered DS Mast is either Selden who bought Proctor several years ago and Superspar. Expect to pay somewhere around $1,500 depending on rigging and shipping.
I have a tapered Ballenger Mast that came from another DS as it was my reasonable option in easily upgrading to a tapered Mast without spending a small fortune.
Ballenger Spars no longer builds DS Masts as Buzz Ballenger had to buy fifty (50) extrusions before he built the first mast then sit on the remainder of stock until the next order.
The Ballenger Boom was actually a stock Thistle Mast extrusion but as was the case with the DS Mast Buzz stopped making Thistle Masts several years ago.
Last year we stripped the original rigging from an old original silver anodized tapered Proctor Mast from an old DS sitting in my side yard, cut-out the old sheave box, welded all of the old holes, sanded all of the welds smooth, cut about 10" off the rotted stump off of the Mast and sleeved a new replacement section to the bottom before delivering it to our powder coater to be lightly sandblasted and powder coated silver making it look like new.
Then we installed a pair of used Proctor Spreaders powder coated along with the mast, new stainless steel Shrouds & Forestay with T-Terminal Ends, all new Harken sheaves for the halyards & topping lift, new Selden/Proctor Gooseneck for a used Proctor Boom I had stashed away and a slightly used three-sheave Proctor Base.
After all of that work and about $500 out of pocket we had a "new" tapered DS Mast similar in bend characteristics to my Ballenger.
The only drawback to the Proctor is the overly large sail slot just above the gooseneck that originally allowed for the Jib & Spinnaker Halyards to run down the sail slot along with the boltrope for the luff of the Main that doesn't easily allow for a floating Tack Slug commonly found on most all of the new Mains as either a short piece of Spectra or a web loop with Velcro closure will be needed.
Most all of the tapered DS Masts have a welded taper approximately 5' long allowing for the top of the Mast to bend at about the same rate of the rest of Mast that is being bent by a combination of rig tension, boomvang and mainsheet.