wires in the mast

[hmeyrick]

One of the projects I'd like to do, before the mast goes up, is to rewire the mast, adding an anchor light and a VHF antenna.

I have been reading up as much as I can, but I have two questions to submit to the collective wisdom of the board.

The first is simple enough- at the top of the mast, what is the best way to introduce the wires into the mast? Do you drill a hole sideways, into the side of the top of the mast, or do you drill it downwards through the masthead?

The second is this: every resource I have consulted tells me to run a messenger line through the mast to draw the wires through, but each resource is somewhat vague as to how one gets the messenger through in the first place. Old Alt currently has no lines or wires or anything else running inside up the length of the mast. I imagine that if I get a stiff enough cable, I might be able to push it through, but buying thirty-odd feet of stiff cable for such a fleeting use offends my more parsimonious instincts. My mother has suggested I catch a field mouse, tie a line to its tail and strategically insert a firecracker into said mouse, to induce it to run up the mast. While I laud her creative approach to problem solving, I am unsure as to where one procures suitable mice. And should the firecracker I use turn out to be of excessive calibre, well, I should hate to be the sort of person who kills the messenger.

So. Could anyone suggest a workable solution to getting the anchor light wires through? Or, failing that, does anyone have some spare mice they might be willing to sell?

[barfwinkle]

It shouldn't take too long to train the mouse, pretend its a maze?

1st question - drill the hole in the side (IMHO) and be sure and leave enough coax to form a "rain loop". I also used Coax tape (I got it at a local electronic shop and its good stuff) to seal the hole. But before doing the hole I went to an auto parts store and bought a grommet for a specific size hole and kept the part number for when the UV gets too it. The coax tape is kinda gooey so I covered it with a product called "Atomic Tape". It is good stuff as well.

2nd - If you are unsuccessful in training the mouse, use your forestay (or back stay). It is plenty long enough and should snake fairly easy. When you install the wire be sure and use either heavy duty wire ties (and dont cut them) or sail slugs (which should be available from Rigrite if they are still in business). You DO NOT want to leave them loose. the slapping against the mast will drive you insane. I also assume you have a deck/steaming light on the mast, so be sure and use a messanger line there for when you replace it.

It really is a fairly straight forward project and while I rarely use the anchor light at the mast head (I use a little mega light off of the backstay) the radio antenna significantly increases the range of the VHF.

Fair Winds

[Anthony P. Jeske]

Hi;
You'll want to get an electrician's "fish tape". They're available for $7 to $10 at most hardware stores. Once you have one, you'll find a lot of opportunities to use it.
I would route the wires through the mast tube, not the masthead. If the wires exit from the side, you can add a "drip loop" and so help reduce water flow inside the mast.
I was able to unscrew and remove the masthead casting when adding wires to my mast. If you can do the same, it makes the job a LOT easier.
Good Luck,
Tony Jeske

[Paul D.]

Adding to the wire ties to prevent the wires from slapping I have some comments. Especially if your mast has no inner tube for a wire chase as mine did not.

I did this job a few years ago and it has made all the difference to the quiet nights at anchor or on the mooring.

After you figure out running the snake/messenger and the configuration. Go to a surplus supply and get dozens of the cheaper 10" or so wire ties. What you want to create is all your wires bundled together with the wire ties sticking out on all sides thus keeping the long length of wire from banging in the mast.

Tie 4 or 5 ties around your wires every 12"-15" before you run the wires. Make sure the tails of the wire ties stick out in all directions. I thought you could get away with three ties each, 'cause I'm a Slovenian cheap bastard, but you will quickly see that you want at least four or five in a star pattern to really keep the wires from slapping. If you have a coax, a wire for an anchor light and then a steaming light, you really start getting some weight there. Then pull them through in a bundle. Be sure to securely anchor them at the top with another tie or a line to carry the main weight so as your wire sheathing does not chafe on the side hole. I think I lashed three or four ties to spread the load up there.

You will thank Christ, Allah, Buddha and Yahweh every time you settle down for the night, that you did this. Our boat had no wire dampening system so I pulled the mast after the first season, checked everything out and did this job with the help of this board and it has never failed.

Now, when I go out to the boat, I go for peace and quiet, and I get it, no matter how she rocks.

Best of luck,
Paul

[Kurt]

Paul might be suggesting a little bit of overkill on the number of wire ties necessary to quiet down noisy mast wires. I've rewired masts on three different boats boats and got away with 3 wire ties spaced 120 degrees apart about every 4 feet to quiet them down inside the mast.

[Rollergirl]

taped off any other air holes in the mast and fed in a lot of string at the hole where the wire exited. Set the vacuum at the mast base and the string appeared in seconds.
Be sure to put the side of the mast you want the wiring to be in downward.

Bill

[Carl Thunberg]

Whoever installed a VHF antenna at the masthead of my boat also stuffed some foam plugs up the mast, presumably to prevent the antenna wire from slapping against the inside of the mast. Those foam plugs have become a huge obstacle to trying to install a masthead anchor light. Those plugs are to me, what gophers are to Bill Murray. I tried to extract the plugs. No luck. I tried the opposite approach and bought a very stiff fiberglass electrician's snake and tried ramming it through the foam plugs to puncture them. No luck. Got stuck. I succeded in installing an electrician's snake in my mast. Gave up. Looks like I'll be using the lantern on a halyard for one more year. And if that damn fiberglass snake slaps against the inside of the mast all year, I'll have no one else to blame, which is the worst part of all.

[Ed Haley]

If your mast is horizontal and the truck removed, another way of getting a wire through the mast is to use your backstay (disconnected from the truck) and feed it through one end. The other end of the backstay can pull a wire through the mast after wiring and taping it to the end of the backstay. I used this method once on my CD28. Then you can attach cable ties to the wire as you pull it through.

[John Danicic]

Carl:

I got that pesky foam out our mast by purchasing sixty feet of 1/2 inch PVC plastic wire conduit and rammed that foam along with a few bird nests, out from the mast top down to the bottom. A rather comical looking procedure since the mast was mounted horizontally atop the boat with the head hanging out over a dock and me standing on a 12 foot ladder. I punched out a good bushel basket of foam, straw and feathers. The conduit later found a use in my back porch wiring project. I too used the multitude of wire ties that my brother, Paul D. mentioned. Better too many ties then not enough. The sound of slapping wires in a hollow metal tube could be classified as torture by the Geneva convention. Even Dick Cheney would want to ban it. Maybe not.

Sail on

John Danicic
CD 36 -Mariah- #124
Lake Superior

[Ron M.]

After painting my spars a few years ago I rewired the mast. I have mast- head, steaming, deck,spreader lights, as well as antenna and windex cables. A bunch of wires. There was 1" id aluminum conduit existing but I didn't want to stuff it full. I ran the cables and masthead wire in the conduit,the rest outside of it. Every 3' I used a 18" length of 3/4" pipe insulation secured with tape and nylon ties. So far no noise, no problems.
________
Hot penny stocks

[dhostett]

I notice in this interchange there is several mentions of folks having/wanting to install an anchor light. I was surprised when I first tried to turn on my anchor light to discover I didn't have one. Is this normal? I presently use kerosene lantern for anchor light but am curious.

Thanks

Damon

[Will Wheatley]

I used a fish tape and drilled a hole out the side of the mast near the top. I used Marine Goop to glue the anchor light to the top of the masthead and it has been fine for about five years now.

While you are at it you may consider replacing the masthead/steaming light and the wires for it as well and if you are feeling ambitious you could add spreader lights too. I did all this the last time the mast was down.

The most difficult part of the job was getting the wires from the panel to the base of the mast inside the headliner in the cabin.

This may be obvious but I will mention it just in case. Make sure you have a foot or so of extra wire on both ends for the connections at the base of the mast. This will make making the connections a lot easier and the extra wire can just be stuffed up the mast. This will also allow you to cut the ends in the future if for whatever reason corrosion occurs at the connections ( use waterproof heatshrink tubes to help aviod this at all your connections).

Good Luck and Happy Sailoring~~~~/)~~~~

[Mark Yashinsky]

Another idea, for those that have a track on teh interior of the mast, as part of the extrusion, is try to find mast slides to fit the track. If you can, as you feed the wire bendle up the mast, ziptie on a slide every so often, start the slide into the track. Yes, you cannot add a cable to the bundle, without removing the whole bundle, but, if done correctly, they will not slap.

[tartansailor]

Will Wheatley brought up an interesting point about connecting the wires at the base of the mast.

The guys that installed an "electric fence" to contain our dogs connected wires by using wire nuts, then filling with silicone before burying underground. Claim they never had a failure in 12 years.

They claim that the same silicone one purchases in a hardware store is the same stuff used in marine cables.

So, what do you think about that scheme?

Dick

[Oswego John]

So, what do you think about that scheme?

Dick

I see nothing much wrong if done correctly. Half of the underground street light wiring in the country is terminated in a similar manner.

With a slight variation, the use of epoxy as a filler and plastic casing instead of wire nuts, I have used this method to wire systems for underground nuclear weapon testing at Yucca Mountain, Nevada Test Site.

Believe me, that is one place where there is zero tolerance for boo-boos. Absolutely no margin for error.

O J