[trhway]

>snapped the mast, which made the ship unbalanced and capsize.

that sounds strange for a sailboat designed to keel a lot. And the unbroken mast has higher leverage, yet the boat keels without capsizing. And capsizing is usually not that great an issue too.

[katzinsky]

As someone with a sailboat who sails just about every week (since I live on it and have to keep moving) I'm also having a pretty hard time understanding this one.

In high winds removing the mast should make it less prone to capsizing just like reefing would.

EDIT: Oh I see they're thinking it's the waves not the wind.

[foldr]

Lots of independent sources suggest that the mast can increase resistance to capsizing and that losing a mast can make a boat more prone to capsizing.

https://www.morganscloud.com/2008/08/01/sailboat-stability-c...

Overall, the topic of sailboat stability is complex enough that books have been written on the subject: https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=o3edvBByudgC&o...

I would not dive into conspiracy theories on the basis of whatever back-of-an-envelope intuitions you might have here.

[foldr]

Also here: https://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/f55/can-a-mast-be-too-t...

>Counterintuitively [a boat with a tall mast] will be be more capsize resistant, capsize is a dynamic phenomenon and increase mast height provides a vastly disproportionate increase in roll moment of inertia which resists capsize. Stability is a static phenomenon even when the boat is moving thru the water and provides little if any resistance to capsize.