Mast wiring
On Tashtego (a '79 Cat 27) the mast wiring comes up through the hanging locker on the port side and enters a groove in the top of the wooden piece that crosses over the passageway between the main cabin and the head. This piece carries, on its bottom edge, the track for the sliding curtain which closes off the head from the main cabin. The cable penetrates up through the deck through a "cable clam" gland three or four inches from the mast. There is an inspection hole with cover on the port side of the mast a few inches above the deck and there is a hole in the inspection plate with a grommet for the cable to enter the mast where it connects, via bayonet connectors, with the mast wiring. There used to be a brass gland for the wires to come up through the deck. The wiring was a flat five or six conductor cable just like the ones you see on trailer connectors. I replaced this with a round, five conductor Ancor cable from West Marine and a new cable clam which I drilled to tightly seal the round cable sheath. No leaks, lots of conductors and disconnecting just requires removing the inspection cover (two screws) and disconnecting the five bayonet conductors. All wires are labeled on both the deck and mast sides with plastic labels from Radio Shack so that I can reconnect them correctly when the mast goes back up. By the way, when setting these connectors up I made the grounds female and the hot lead males on the boat side and vice versa on the mast side so that I can't connect a hot side to a ground by accident.
