well this morning turned out to be quite calm and amazingly enough the welder actually came by. he found me up at the cafe having coffee working on emails. to make a long story short after about 1.5 hours x 2 people = 120 pounds i had the result shown. i sent out the following to "jim"

thanks for the help on the phone yesterday.

the welding guys came by this am and did the welds. can you take a look at the photos and tell me if you think it is ok to reinstall?

a couple comments

1. they pointed out the existing welds where quite shallow, makes sense

2. the piece in the middle actually fell out when they where prepping, ie the cracks extended all the way up and down on both sides

3. after re welding with no pressure the bolt hole rows are now 2 mm closer together (this means the mast is narrower than it was)

4. they filled the bolt hole where the crack came from

5. they added a piece of aluminum in the channel that was cracked and then welded it in

6. my plan is to put the goose neck on with only 7 bolts, no re-drilling of the one hole

7. i will need to redrill either the goose neck bracket to (make holes wider or re drill the mast to account for 3 above, which do you recommend.

i got back a decent response except for the following comment

"I want to say just take it easy and if you get into some heavy weather, use the jib as much as possible."

i think it is 10 x better then it was so i will try to get the boom on tomorrow and underway the next day if weather still good. the inly wrinkle seems to be the goose neck bracket will not mount flush with the mast so i will have to remove material from the mast or the gooseneck fitting with the grinder. should make a major mess.

cheers, roger