Help! My Hunter 30G (1989) needs a new windvane/speed transducer installed. I bought Raymarine S60+. I can't get the old wind wire out of the mast so I must unstep mast from compression post. Mast electrics (except wind wire) appear to enter from under compression post. There has to be a junction box some where near the mast juncture. Before I spend the bucks on a haul and crane I really need to know the location of the junction box and just how to proceed. Any help appreciated and yes, I tried the new instrument with the old wire - no joy.
Hunter 30 (89) Wind Wire Replacement
- Thread starter HANCOCKA12
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One of the 'kindnesses' of the Hunter design guys was to neaten up the area around the base of the mast and not to have any untidy stray cables showing. So they had a stainless tube about 1" diameter come up through the cast aluminium mast heel down which the cables pass directly into the cabin below. The idea was to seal this point with silicone just as the mast was being stepped.
I have learned of several instances where mast unsteppers were unaware of this and just lifted the mast and wrecked the cables because disconnecting the cables is not riggers work and is often an owners job prior to unstepping.
Then again subsequent mast steppers did not see the need for the silicone and, when the mast base fills with water - which it does by rain driving in through fittings holes - water constantly runs down the compression post - even when its not raining. It also quickly corrodes away the wires into the connector strip because of the voltage present.
Drill two drain holes 3/16" diameter in the heel casting, one on each side, to overcome this.
Also think how easy? it is to feed this pigtail of wires down the steel tube with the base of the mast swinging in the breeze whilst someone else below decks has to pull it all through. Then there is a further delay whilst the mastic gun is used to seal in between and around each of the five cables.
I guess the damage rate to the mast cables must be considerable. Then, in later months and years, the water rots through the exposed braid and conductors
I just caught the dealer's riggers when they were about to step the mast on my '96 H376 and I made them bring the cables out of the sidewall of the mast and through a proper deck gland with the strip connector under the deck.
Since then no problems.
Sorry to be a Jonah but it looks as if having the mast out is the only way forward. But when it goes back you will at least have the benefit of this experience.
I have learned of several instances where mast unsteppers were unaware of this and just lifted the mast and wrecked the cables because disconnecting the cables is not riggers work and is often an owners job prior to unstepping.
Then again subsequent mast steppers did not see the need for the silicone and, when the mast base fills with water - which it does by rain driving in through fittings holes - water constantly runs down the compression post - even when its not raining. It also quickly corrodes away the wires into the connector strip because of the voltage present.
Drill two drain holes 3/16" diameter in the heel casting, one on each side, to overcome this.
Also think how easy? it is to feed this pigtail of wires down the steel tube with the base of the mast swinging in the breeze whilst someone else below decks has to pull it all through. Then there is a further delay whilst the mastic gun is used to seal in between and around each of the five cables.
I guess the damage rate to the mast cables must be considerable. Then, in later months and years, the water rots through the exposed braid and conductors
I just caught the dealer's riggers when they were about to step the mast on my '96 H376 and I made them bring the cables out of the sidewall of the mast and through a proper deck gland with the strip connector under the deck.
Since then no problems.
Sorry to be a Jonah but it looks as if having the mast out is the only way forward. But when it goes back you will at least have the benefit of this experience.
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