Masthead question...

[rpludwig]

Replacing halyard masthead sheaves to accommodate 8mm line, made the mistake of ordering from CD (they said fine w/8mm, not so by my eyes. Then read Stingy's post on replacing with Ronstan RF251 sheaves (on order now), simple enough. What's up with the aluminum plate atop the masthead (for windex, etc.), held in place with double faced tape! What have you guys done about that? Drilled & tapped it to the masthead? (not much meat there to drill & tap to)...
Thx in advance,
Ron

 

[Gene Neill]

Hopefully these pics may be of some help. FWIW, those are the sheaves from CD.

 

[rpludwig]

Gene...helpful....diy solutions are usually the best! Nice work...!

 

[Ron20324]

Now Gene, THAT's the kind of pics everyone should have about everything on their boat!

 

[Gene Neill]

I dunno, it really shows off how out of plumb things are!

The 360 degree light is not my creation, it came with the boat. And the Windex mount is a factory part from Davis Instruments. Available on Amazon, etc: http://www.davisnet.com/product/deluxe-universal-masthead-mount/

 

[rpludwig]

gene...which windex is that, 10 or 15?

 

[Gene Neill]

It's a 10.

 

[SG]

You might reduce the amount of water coming down the mast if you replaced the sheave cover. I agree the double sided tape bothers me, too.

You might fabricate something that comes off and is held in place (in part) by the masthead light extension.

Then again, what's a little fresh water? (In our case, in the Chesapeake, the Starlings would be depositing other things into that slot :^))) )

 

[rpludwig]

SG, good point, some kind of "cover" would be desired for sure, whatever it is, needs to be fabricated...

 

[Len Ingalls]

A suggestion. Wrap your VHF socket,connector & coax completely with self amalgamating tape & then coat the tape with Liquid Tape. Both are available from most marine suppliers. / Len

 

[Joe]

None of the Catalina masthead fittings are covered... that was an owner addition. You can make brackets or covers with a U channel piece of aluminum and self tapping screws into an area that won't interfere with the sheaves.
The anchor light was standard equipment on that generation of catalinas 22, 25,27, 30 ...
Originally, the boats came with wire to rope halyards... the sheaves in the masthead had a max width of 1/4 " to allow for side by side mounting... so... if you convert to all rope halyards.. you must be aware of those width limitations. My solution was building "tapered" halyards.

 

[Jacktar]

You can buy a rubber boot for the VHF plug (PL 259) into the bottom of the Metz stainless steel antenna at all RV stores, same size as used for cable tv or CBs.