I have a 1984 O'day and I'm attempting to fix the mast lights while I have the mast down.
The forward facing one half way up the mast has a black and white wire attached to it and the mast head has a red and black wire. At the bottom of the mast there are 3 wires, one for an antennea, one with a plug that goes into the deck and the red and black wire. Without removing the plug I am to assume that it is for the forward light, however when it is plugged in it does not work. The bulb is fine and all the switches in the cabin are on.
I am also to assume that the mast head light is after market and my parents just never finished installing it.
So with that one how can I easily hook that light up? Can I splice it into the forward light or do I need to take it through the deck?
Thanks!
I fixed my anchor light on the mast of my 222 about a year last spring. Every year in the fall, I remove my stays and spreaders and use my mast for a ridge pole in covering the boat with a large tarp. So it was a lot easier to handle the mast and work on the electric in my back yard using a small work bench to support one end of the mast, and the grandchild's plastic playhouse to support the other end. I had a rigger install a steaming light on my mast years ago when I had a new mast being made up for her. I regret having done this because the mast has internal halyards and one of the wires to the steaming light must have got torn out by one of the halyards. For the few times that I have used that steaming light, it just wasn't worth having, so I removed it along with the wire that feeds it. What I did was this: I removed the mast head and pulled the wires out from that end. I tied a tag string to the wires at the tabernacle end in order to pull my wires back in. You can take an ordinary battery charger and hook it to the wires that feed the anchor light and if the light is working, it should light. I would check the wires for continuity first with an Ohm's meter and make sure that there are no breaks in the conductors or shorts to ground. Each of your two lights will have two wires on separate switches. Your anchor light should be on one switch and consist of a hot wire and a ground. All your grounds are tied together near your electric panel. Your steaming light should be on a seperate switch, and it also has a hot wire and a ground. You can have one ground inside your mast which can be a common ground to both lights on your mast. I don't think that's advisable though. I would run two duplex wires up the mast to feed each light.
All I was concerned with was getting my anchor light going. I used my Dremel Tool with a small wire brush to clean the metal contacts of the light and even the metal on the bulb. If you look closely at the inside of the masthead anchor light lens, you'll see a plastic prong that protrude down. This prong is used to apply pressure to the top electric contact for the bulb to keep it in place so that it doesn't get jarred and lose electric contact. So when you put that lens back in, eyeball it carefully to make sure that the prong sits on that metal contact.
I'm not certain of this but you may need to run an additional wire inside your cabin to feed this steaming light because the O'Day 222s never came through new with a steaming light on the mast that I know of. If your existing electric cable that feeds your mast has three conductors, you can do it. I think that you'll find that most of the wires that feed your interior lights are red and black, black being the ground. One wire can be a common ground for both lights, and that will leave two hot wires to feed each of your lights. Each light needs to come off a separate switch. Boats of this size don't really need a steaming light but if you want it to work, then go ahead and repair it. If your mast is Dwyer with external halyards, it will work out OK. If on the other hand, "four thumbs and a finger," you have Z-Spar with internal halyards like my mast, you're always going to have problems with it. Good luck and let us know how you made out.
Joe
