wires in the mast

[Carl Thunberg]

As you could probably tell from my previous post on this topic, the brute force and ignorance method wasn't working for me. Marcia and I celebrated Mother's Day at the boat yesterday. Being of a generally more patient and gentle disposition than I, she patiently got all those foam plugs and the ridiculous tangle of electrician's snake out of the mast, then she fished the wire up the mast. Now Leona Pearl has a nice Davis Megalite anchor light. Sometimes it takes a woman's touch, or at least a complete change of mental state.

[barfwinkle]

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

This is exactly how I did my mast wires. The slugs are available from Rigrite (yeah I know), and probably from other sources as well, which would be my first choice.

Mark is certainly correct about adding another wire!

Fair Winds

PS you should be able to go to Rigrite's web site and see a cross section of your mast to determine if there is an internal track!

bs

[moctrams]

I work part time at a Marina and have seen all kinds of "owner's" work on their electrical system,including wire nuts. I buy the cable assy. for boat trailers for the mast to boat connections. I have yet to see any fail. Just take a look at all of the "dangling" trailer connectors on vehicles. I solder my connection for fail safe operation.
I also rewire old boats and even after one season, the wires get corroded in their jacket. I have to cut back a long way to get "clean' copper.

[hmeyrick]

Thank you all for your splendid advice- the suggestion to use a stay was an inspired one- not only did it answer admirably to the task at hand, but also pushed through a prodigious amount of spiderwebs, waspsnests, etc. I had had no idea our multilegged friends found the inside of a mast such a desirable address, but I am glad to be rid of them, and look forward to the improved performance of Old Alt without all that unnecessary weight aloft. My gorilla-fisted helper only managed to shear off one bolt removing the masthead casting, so all-in-all a good days work, and I am sure that no boat on Lake Erie sports more cable-ties inside her mast than mine.

You would think that, with such a splendidly wired mast, I would be happy as a marigold, wouldn't you? Beautiful as these wires are, however, I can't shake the suspicion that at some point I shall have to connect them to something... Possibly, at some point I may even need to pass wires through the deck... Oh, the black clouds of doubt and uncertainty! In fact I very likely would have given in to despair, were it not that I realized that the same people who offered such excellent advice before may be willing to pitch in again!

So, if anyone has suggestions, any insights born of experience to pass on- or simply wishes to reminisce about pleasant days spent passing wires inside the headliner, I can guarantee you an appreciative audience.

[wirelessenabled]

[quote="tartansailor"]

So, what do you think about that scheme?

Dick[/quote]

We repair the timing/communication wires on our ski racing hill similar to that. We wire nut the wires together, shove the whole bunch in the end of a capped PVC pipe, use silicone caulk to fill the pipe as much as possible.

These repairs lay out on top of the ground in the sun all summer and under 15-20 feet of snow in the winter. Deep in snowmelt in the spring. Never had a failure yet.