I only wish I had a nice setup like Ed has!
I made my own 'wiring conduit' as my mast (Kenyon 3650; the 'teardrop') didn't have one. First I made it out of heavy-wall plastic electrical conduit: weight acceptable, but too big OD and too small ID. I tried 3/4" PVC: too big OD. Finally I went with 1/2" CPVC, which has a thinner wall, is lightweight, and is down-and-dirty cheap (total cost for this arrangement: $7.50). In this I got two yellow grounds and four signal wires, all 14-gauge, plus a run of 18/2 for the anemometer sender, and the VHF cable. A word to the wise: do not bundle the wires with tape. Oh; they'll still give you trouble getting them out; but they won't even fit in a tight tube. I just pulled it through a foot at a time and went to the other end to remove the tape as the wires entered the tube.
Then I pulled the whole thing into the mast when ran new chase strings for the new halyards. If I remember rightly, the VHF departs from the tube well above the bottom, as the 12VDC and the VHF exit on opposite sides. By some miracle only the internal pole lift, which did not exist originally, is a potential twist around the conduit; and I haven't rigged the boat like this yet and will unravel it when I reeve new halyards. The CPVC is wired against the forward corner of the mast with SS seizing wire at the (now unused) spreader-light wires' exit and with a sheet-metal screw at the very top, immediately below the masthead crane. Otherwise it just sort of stands there by virtue of the wires themselves (none of this weighs very much; and where can it go?).
This seems clumsy but it beats the original arrangement, which was five wires in a-- wait for it-- 5/8" clear-plastic (but completely smeared in mold) plastic aquarium hose. Way to go, Hunter Marlboro!
