Mast wiring

[drazlou]

I'm planning on dropping the mast this off season to do some repairs and upgrades. Is the wiring between the mast and the deck connected with some sort of plug? The wiring is all inside the mast so I can't see what I'm dealing with. The boat is a 1994 so should I rewire the mast while it's down? I think the standing rigging is original so should I replace that as well? Everything is working now except the deck light which I plan to replace and the standing rigging looks ok, no obvious signs of corrosion.

 

[hvbaker]

I have an 89 which has a plug at base inside mast.

I would recommend replacing standing rigging if it has not been replaced. Also check all chain plates. I had a lower shroud chainplate fail do to corrosion about 02:00 one morning about 5 miles out in the Atlantic Ocean 2 miles North of the Mayport inlet on the St Johns river. Got the sails down and got in. After that experience, I replaced all the standing rigging, chain plates and tangs. Well worth the money for peace of mind.

 

[jimmcgee]

My '95 has a plug at the base of the mast. The wiring was in good shape. You'll find it's run down a PVC tube inside the mast.

Do an inspection on the standing rigging when you get it down. I dropped my rig this spring and it was pretty obvious the forestay needed replacement.

While I had the rig down I installed a new light at the masthead (the old one was toast from UV). Once its down it will be obvious what you need to do.

I see you're on Forked River, is Silver Cloud pulling your mast?

 

[drazlou]

Jim,
Thanks for the info. I've stored my boat over the winter and had service done at both Rick's and Townsend's so I'll probably use one of them to pull the mast when I store it for the winter. Why did you mention Silver Cloud?

 

[jakez]

I have an 82 - just rewired the mast. I had a helluva time trying to run new wires and eventually figured out that the original wiring was basically taped to big pieces of foam. I expected a PVC conduit - but that's not how they did it on my boat. A friend who had worked at the factory told me that there wasn't necessarily a standard way they wired the mast. I ended up pulling everything out and starting again. I didn't run PVC up the mast. I put in some foam blocks at the top and bottom to try to keep the wires in the middle. I haven't had any issues with noisy wires inside the mast, so I guess it worked.
There is a plug at the base of the mast. Once you pull the mast up it's pretty easy to deal with.

 

[jimmcgee]

On the newer boats all the wiring is run inside a PVC conduit. Catalina even leaves a fish string inside to make it easy to pull additional wiring. Just take your time and have a person at each end of the mast. You'll hit snags, just do a gentle push/pull back and forth until you work past the snag.

Lou, I mentioned Silver Cloud because they're pretty much the go-to guys for sailboats on the southern end of the bay. They're good guys and they have pulling/stepping the mast down to a science. I have nothing but good things to say about those guys.