Last season (2015 )while winterizing my H23.5 I noticed that two of the four rivets that connect the mast foot to the mast were missing.
I don't know how that happened as I have owned the boat for 13 years and never had any trouble raising or lowering the mast each spring and fall. Always went smoothly.
This spring for safety sake and peace of mind, I drilled out the two remaining rivets and discovered that two of the holes the missing rivets were supposed to occupy in the foot were broken off.
I contacted the SBO website store and was able to have a new foot shipped to me. The new foot arrived and included four stainless rivets and I observed that the new casting needed all four holes to be drilled as well as some material removed with a bench grinder. I learned that my hand held pop rivet tool was not going to get the job done as it would not deform the rivets.
The solution was to buy a heavy duty rivet tool at Harbor Freight which required inserting the correct collet ( it comes with five size rivets and collets) and squeezing the long arms of the tool with all my strength until the rivet popped properly. I now have a sturdy mast foot and do not have to worry about it's integrity.
I know some will say it does not matter if the rivets are loose or missing as there is no force on it when fully raised. Well it sure does matter if that foot separates while raising or lowering the mast.
Note: Hunter used a few different brand masts for the 23.5 and in order to buy the correct cast foot to match your mast , when ordering you must describe the shape of the casting as they sell different shaped castings to match the different masts.
Thank's to the SBO Store people I had a great summer of sailing
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