Has anyone got a mast ram to spare for a 1973 September Girl with a hog stepped Superspars M7 mast?

I could lend you one for 6 months! Doubt I'll be using it.

Not too hard to make one surely? I still wonder if a 'banana' shape would be good, to avoid catching on the jib sheets so much.

Thanks mags, I believe the type I require is a below deck fitting. I could make one out of a suitably sized rowlock with the shaft drilled for a series of pin positions and an inverted mast step screwed under the foredeck. It would only be fit for pre-sailing setting up though, not readily adjustable on the water. I saw something along those lines in MR 2534, the derelict at Bosham. The alternative would be to fabricate a multiple pulley box with the fixed sheaves at the aft end, just fwd of the mast, and the moving end fwd pulling a shaft towards the stern (more string!) with a 'U' end attached bearing against the mast. Or a bag of different sized wedges even!

As far as a banana above decks is concerned it would need to be in compression so it would have to bow out from the mast, thus increasing the obstruction to the jib sheets?

Why don't you fit lowers?

Peter,

Northampton Sailboats do the ram you are after - RWO Ref R4520

I used to have one on an smokers  once owned. Inverted under deck in front of mast with block and twin control line fed back to thwart.

cut and paste this link:-

http://www.sailboats.co.uk/Product~Rwo_Mast_Ram_51mm_Width_R4520.html

Cheers

Richard

Price is a bit steep £71.99!!!!

try the fireball website, most of those use rams and there are loads of old derelict wooden fireballs about.

Sorry, was thinking of the ram as being the strut, not the whole caboodle of lever/pivot etc.

A banana could be in compression and still bend down/into the mast?

Thanks Jon for comment re lowers but I don't want to go that way until my expertise is such that it will warrant a change to deck stepped - a major task on a 33 year old September Girl. 
Thanks Richard, I noticed the same item at £67 odd from P&B. It looks good but pricey,and I'm a bit of a cheapskate at heart. 
Thanks FT, I will have a look at derelict Fireballs, it will make a change from ditto MRs. 
Mags, I won't quibble over the relative merits of convex or concave bananas; it's so long since I or friends experimented with them that I may have the physics wrong!

Peter, 

Give me ring on 01162 387346, I can't promise but I may still have a mast ram from 265? which I dismantled a couple of years back.

Nigel

Lowers can be used on a hog stepped rig, in my impoverished past i made some out of kevlar rope (!!) for number 2998 to replace the mast ram.

They worked fine at the time, althought the though now sends shivers down my spine.

The effect is the same as a ram, only they also stop any side flex at gooseneck level.

Had a 1960 merlin with a very effective ram: a lever mounted horizontally under the foredeck, pivot on one side, then about 2" to a pivoted arm that pushed against the mast then about 14" lever pulled by a rope to a cleat (add purchase if required). this is similar to the FF one P&B sell for vertical mounting.
Later made one for a Baker Lark from a length of old spinaker pole (or might have been spreader bar): cheap, light and effective (bit like the Lark realy wrt the other thread!

Thanks Nigel, Chris & Paul. 
I have a very old winch type ram on order from an eBayer who has tried twice to flog a Nat 12 mast, so I will see how that will work, if at all, before committing to further experimentation. Having read a bit more about rigging in the last couple of weeks I can see that lowers are a good idea. At the moment I am shaping a piece of 18mm marine ply to beef up the area under the currently too thin for comfort mast gate.

Levers are best for most things friction less of an issue "Give me a firm place to stand..................................."

Be carefulwith lowers.  A 1973 boat will have a high bow tank and the rig loads will not be triangulated in the same way as post 3200(ish) boats with low bow tanks that run further back in the boat.  If you are going to use lowers to control mast bend you will need to put in some sort of space frame.

Thanks JC, I thought I might have to strengthen the area. My boat has a much lower fwd tank than the other Sept Girl lying at Bosham but it does not extend far enough aft to be part of a space frame.

Lowers don't work well on hog / centreboard stepped mast.  When I acquired 3227 (SuperTrouper) someone had fitted lowers and when I got rid of them on advice, she went much better.

Richard, that depends on what the lowers are being used for. I would guess that Super trouper had a strut controlling the fore and aft bend and lowers that went directly outwards which supposedly stopped any side flex at gooseneck level.

I've seen that system of a number of boas of that vintage, and i think that system would fall down because the strut and lowers would end up fighting one another as to where they wanted the mast to be! In your case remove the lowers, all is well.

If you had removed the strut completely and taken the lowers back to where they are on modern boats (Totally unecessary of course) you would have found that same improvement.

Thanks for latest info. So, if I have got it right, a mast ram at the gate of a hog stepped mast only affects the mainsail fullness by limiting the mast bend forwards from foot to head, but has little effect on sail power compared with the mainsail outhaul, cunningham, kicker and sheet. A strut or lowers allow the mast above the gooseneck to bend more and this results in greater control over the sail's power?

A mast ram will give you control over the bend in the lower half of the mast. This opposes the kicker and gives you a very good power control. On = more, off = less but used in very small amounts.

Lowers and struts do exactly the same but, because they oppose the kicker at the point of direct force control the bend over a greater height. Lowers and struts generally suffer less from friction too.

Thanks Chris, I think I've got it. More ram = straighter mast = more power. Less ram = more mast bend = less power (and slacker leach). So I should set the mast with more bend for beating in stronger winds (also taking into account the need to make the mainsail as 'barn door' like as possible with kicker and sheet) and with less bend for sailing off the wind and in lighter weather. 
I reckon it will need careful setting up to obtain sufficient forestay and shroud tension with the mast straight as a starting position then increasing shroud tension ever so slightly as the mast is allowed to bend forward at the gate.
Off on a tangent, I was talking last week to a pair of 1960's MR veterans who had a mast with parrot perches and adjustable mast tip rigging tensioners led down through to the cockpit! They were also very encouraging about Sept Girls' stability: 'They just carry on heeling until the lee deck is awash, then fill up'. In the limited sailing time we had I discovered that initial stability is not particularly great but resistance to heel quickly increased with angle. However, it was obvious from the feel and speed that the boat was designed to sail upright.

And too much ram = S-shaped mast!

Thanks Mags, I can imagine that an S is not too difficult to achieve in a bit of a blow. I seem to remember there's a rather scary photo in the gallery.

I think the pic you mean is when someone forgot the puller (deck-stepped mast). The S-bend issue is regardless of wind strength - it happens if you pull the ram on too much.....or perhaps it's just my spreaders?!

So, Mags, the wise man shouldn't apply more ram than he started with unless he eases the tension in the jib luff and tightens the shrouds accordingly, at the same time as avoiding squeezing the gunwales together in an older style boat .

The really wise man will have a crew who is quick enough to sight up the mast when amidships!!

And at the same time avoid being garotted by the kicker!