Mast opening in the cabin top?

[Chris Scheck]

What's a good way to seal the mast opening in the cabin top? I know someone makes a fancy "system" to do it, but it's over $100 if I remember correctly. Is there a do-it-yourself method that works reasonably well?


Chris Scheck
RAGTIME CD33
Newport



cscheck@aol.com

[Steve Alarcon]

Chris,

I used the 4" self annealing tape from West Marine. It works fine, and was cheaper than what the yard wanted to do.

Steve Alarcon
CD36 Tenacity
Seattle



alarcon3@prodigy.net

[Bruce Lumsden]

I am sure that Steve's method works fine, though I think that it would be better to seal the edges of the penetration with epoxy as suggested in "This Old Boat". To do this, you would neatly cut the penetration, dig out the core material back 1/2" or so back from the opening, and fill the resulting space with WEST epoxy thickened with colloidal silica. Once the epoxy sets, you could then use a router with a 1/4" radius round-over bit to dress the edges and presto, you will have nice neat hole whose edges will be extremely resistant to abrasion. If you wanted to get fancy, you could paint the new edges with a small amount of 2-part polyurethane enamel and the whole thing will be pretty and resistant to UV light exposure, if any, when the mast boot is not in place.

FWIW,
Bruce Lumsden
CS 25 'Sabine'
Hull 314
Harpswell, Maine

What's a good way to seal the mast opening in the cabin top? I know someone makes a fancy "system" to do it, but it's over $100 if I remember correctly. Is there a do-it-yourself method that works reasonably well?


Chris Scheck
RAGTIME CD33
Newport

JLumsden@gwi.net