What's happening to these screws

[jfmid]

Hello All,
I have attached pictures of my mast on my 272LE 1988.

I was doing an exam of my boat and noticed 2 problems at the mast.
1. These screws at the base of the mast are loose. They seem to back right out of the holes with no grip.
What are they doing as the length of the screw seems very short????
I will not be sailing soon so I can wait till I get answers on how to fix. I didn't try to just retighten although that seems the simplest. Something just seemed weird so thought I'd ask first.

2. The coating for the white wire is obviously cracked and broken and needs replacement. It looks like a 2 inch piece of coaxial cable. It is probably for the antenna for VHF but haven't confirmed yet. The VHF works well and was tested but I cant let this remain like this. Is this a major PITA to repair????

PS the main sheet is sticking at the sheave on the starboard side. Any suggestions on how to prevent/cure sticking. Not fun when dropping sail in high winds and sail wont come down and has to be wrestled on wet pitching deck.....you get the picture.

 

[emergpa1]

1. That is weird, those short screws. Do they attach a cover plate to a "base" of some sort. And then the base is attached to the deck with through bolts, with nuts and washers visible from inside the cabin?
2. If your reception is good, try black liquid electrical tape, available at the hardware store or lowes. Be careful, it is messy and will drip everywhere. Use three coats. Wipes up with alcohol or acetone.
3. I am not sure about your binding. Did you try a little dry lubricant spray? ( sorry, the name of the ingredient escape me)
I look forward to finding out about those screws.
keith

 

[Joe11688]

Hello All,
I have attached pictures of my mast on my 272LE 1988.

I was doing an exam of my boat and noticed 2 problems at the mast.
1. These screws at the base of the mast are loose. They seem to back right out of the holes with no grip.
What are they doing as the length of the screw seems very short????
I will not be sailing soon so I can wait till I get answers on how to fix. I didn't try to just retighten although that seems the simplest. Something just seemed weird so thought I'd ask first.

2. The coating for the white wire is obviously cracked and broken and needs replacement. It looks like a 2 inch piece of coaxial cable. It is probably for the antenna for VHF but haven't confirmed yet. The VHF works well and was tested but I cant let this remain like this. Is this a major PITA to repair????

PS the main sheet is sticking at the sheave on the starboard side. Any suggestions on how to prevent/cure sticking. Not fun when dropping sail in high winds and sail wont come down and has to be wrestled on wet pitching deck.....you get the picture.

A friend of mine owns a 1986 O'Day 272, not the LE, and I helped him sail it to Bristol RI from the Cape in Ma. a few years ago. I really didn't get a good look at his mast step but I imagine it is set up the same way as yours. It seems to me that the screws in that step are awfully short to do any good at all in that mast step, but maybe they do have a purpose. Some mast steps on other boats like my friend's Catalina 27 are just screwed into the cabin top with regular wood screws and they did that for a reason, being that in the event of the mast should go over, it won't rip out the top of the cabin. Makes sense to me but I'm not about to change my bolts to screws on my O'Day 222 anytime soon.
As a matter of fact, this exact thing happened to my friend's Catalina 27 during a storm at the mooring. One of his stays came loose and his mast went over. He was able to get it fixed at the boatyard up the river. There was no damage to his mast and very little damage to the fiberglass surface under his mast step where it pulled out.
Anyway, if I were you I'd screw it back in to see if it tightens up and also unscrew one of the other screws to see if it is the same size as that one. If it turns out that everything is copacetic, what I would do is take a Dremel Tool with a brush attachment and clean all the screws, coat them with Lock-Tite thread cement, and screw them back in.
As for the VHF coax: I think that the previous owner could have purchased a better thru-hull connector than the one he used and eliminated that unsightly connection. but that's neither here nor there. The fact is. It's working because you say it is. Under that outside cover is the wire shield and obviously water hasn't gotten into that single conductor yet. So what I would do is either use some black electric tape on that outer cover or liquid tape to seal out the moisture and you'll be good to go. Later on you may want to replace that thru-hull coax connector with one similar to the one I have and eliminate that short pig tail. Here's a picture of mine. I think that I purchased mine many years ago at CE Beckman Co. in New Bedford.

 

[RichBone]

What is that metal tag on the white one?

Rich

 

[RichBone]

See if there is any slack on the coax inside where it goes through the cabin top and see if you can push some good wire up through it. Then put a new fitting on it. Solderless connectors are available. If not then you can just replace a section of the coax. Be sure that the coax is rated for vhf, not cable tv coax. The connectors are the same though.
http://www.westmarine.com/webapp/wc...reId=11151&catalogId=10001&page=Coaxial-Cable

Rich

 

[jfmid]

What is that metal tag on the white one?

Rich

Metal tag on white wire has the PO's name scratched on it. Dont know why it's there and just been way to busy to remove it. Kinda weird to Id a boat by a metal tag on a VHF wire lead at the mast. Maybe it was put on there by a repair contractor id'ing a rewire job and he just forgot to remove. It'll disappear soon as I get back to the boat.

 

[jfmid]

Just had a thought that maybe it was to id the mast when taken off and stored away from the boat. Some yards do that. Stack all masts in an area. Bet that was what it was for.