I have a 84 25.5 Hunter ,the mast is sitting on horses . I was replacing the wiring in the mast .While pulling the wire through , from the steaming light , the old wire broke. I didn't get it all the way through . Then I tried pulling the anchor light wire ,that also broke. At the bottom of the mast , there is a mounting plate , with 5 small screws . that were froze up . I thought I could drill the out . I drilled deep enough , to clear the thickness of the mast . I can't get it to move . Now that I'm in deeper than I thought , Is there any diagrams out there , that I can see what is holding me up . Oh yes I screwed up the cable for my marine radio also . I have to replace all wiring in the mast . Any help would really be great Thank you
Other than that, how was your day?
I once pulled the halyard out of a mast. Well, maybe more than once. While the mast was down, I used a plasticized SS wire (1X19, I think) to run a messenger down the mast and then used the messenger to pull a new halyard through.
A friend who is handy with sailboats has used a sinker with monofilament line, while the mast is erect to run a messenger line. I'm sure the folks on this site have a dozen or so ways to run new wires with the mast up or down.
I once pulled the halyard out of a mast. Well, maybe more than once. While the mast was down, I used a plasticized SS wire (1X19, I think) to run a messenger down the mast and then used the messenger to pull a new halyard through.
A friend who is handy with sailboats has used a sinker with monofilament line, while the mast is erect to run a messenger line. I'm sure the folks on this site have a dozen or so ways to run new wires with the mast up or down.
Thanks for your response and good info. But I still have to pull off the bottom plate , as I already drilled the screws out. I need away to open it up . I can finish with the wires and button it back up. I wonder if it is epoxied together?
The site below should give you a good idea as to what you have. It's not likely the mast step is also glued in but you will have to work at getting past those drilled set screws. Maybe you will have to go up one drill size just thru the thickness of the mast wall. You could use an auto body dent puller to get the mast step started out. When you put the new wires in plan out how you will prevent them from slapping the inside of the mast. (you will be glad you did and so will your neighbors)
http://www.rigrite.com/Spars/Kenyon_Spars/3550-Mast.html
http://www.rigrite.com/Spars/Kenyon_Spars/3550-Mast.html
You are the best , this is just what I'm looking for . Thanks to you , at least I have some sort of a idea what I'm looking for and where I'm at. I think run the wires the same as before. The bottom half came out on the portside , the top half was tied off to the bolts on the starboard side . Once again Thank you very much
I had to re-reeve all new lines in the mast. In the course of events I got rid of all the wiring too and just made a harness, fed it into a conduit of three 10-ft pieces of 3/4" CPVC (it's thinner-walled than regular PVC; total cost: about $5.00), and shoved it up the mast while it was on horses. I had two sets of chasers in place, one for the masthead and one for the spreaders. It took about 20 minutes and lots of patience. But it's all apples now.
Don't be afraid to replace all the wiring. It's far easier to yank out the whole mess at once (don't forget to attach a chaser) than to try to persuade just one or two up there with the others. Your boat is 30 years old. This is a no-brainer.
There are several kinds of coax you can use for the VHF antenna. I used either RG-8 or RG-58, whichever is lighter (I forget) and the other one inside the boat. This was due to not having enough of either (I bought scraps from WM) but I checked and this is sufficient.
Some considerations (you knew I would do this
):
Can you not look up the end and see what it is you are actually drilling? --i.e., you may be drilling into the skin of the conduit tube as well. I wouldn't consider replacing that plate but would devise something else. I made a wire-exit block out of PVC, painted black, having a hose barb on one end. The hose goes to a through-hull mounted upside-down in the deck. People see it and ask me where I bought it. I made sure I sanded off the 'Charlotte Pipe' logo so I can make up a story for them.
Don't be afraid to replace all the wiring. It's far easier to yank out the whole mess at once (don't forget to attach a chaser) than to try to persuade just one or two up there with the others. Your boat is 30 years old. This is a no-brainer.
There are several kinds of coax you can use for the VHF antenna. I used either RG-8 or RG-58, whichever is lighter (I forget) and the other one inside the boat. This was due to not having enough of either (I bought scraps from WM) but I checked and this is sufficient.
Some considerations (you knew I would do this
):- Don't go to West Marine for your wire. Geuninedealz.com has US-made marine-grade (tinned-copper) primary wire for about 1/3 of what you'd pay at Big Blue. He sells by the foot. Best of all-- wait for it-- the shipping is FREE! If this isn't a reason to buy all your heavy battery cable from this guy then I don't know what is. I needed 4-gauge; WM had it for $5.19/ft. Geuninedealz had it for like $1.70. And no freight cost! I do not make this up.
- Avoid duplex and triplex wire in the mast. It's expensive, it's not space-efficient; and you're running it all at once, inside a conduit. I ran two separate yellow grounds, one to the spreaders and one to the top. These all attach to the connection block in the head. I used varying colors to keep sane. Forget the code-- use your own code. If it can match what's inside the boat, so much the better.
- Make all connections aloft sealed with tinned-copper connectors and additional heat-shrink tubing.
- I used 14-gauge even though the lights will all (nearly all) be LED. I did the math and even 18 gauge would be sufficient, with insignificant loss, if they're all going to be LEDs.
- I ran an extra circuit for a tri-color I don't even own yet and for an anemometer I haven't finished restoring. The weight of unused wire is meaningless compared to the ease of hooking up these things when ready for them.
- Any time you are pulling any rope or wire up the mast, take a chaser string with you. If you've got a chaser in and are pulling the new rope or wire, pull another chaser in as you pull the earlier one out. You can always yank it out later if you won't need it again. Or, leave it in (I recently redid one of our old C44s and found the braided string we had pulled into the spar in 1980!).
- Be gentle. Never tug hard. Never use any kind of power tool. Pull firmly but gently, like you're persuading a stubborn old dog. One hard yank and something will come apart and then, as my dad would say, you've had the course.
- I think wire is easier than rope to pull through because you have more options for fastening the wire and chaser together. You can't knot the rope-- it's too big. But you can zip-tie the chaser to a loop of wire and that'll go up just fine.
- Consider very carefully where you want the exits to be and on what side of the inside of the spar you want the conduit to be on. If you have a conduit already, that's great; but some of us don't. A general rule: when in a war of abrasion between rope halyards and electrical wire, the rope will win.
- Always but always lead all the wires down to the very mast step and then UP AGAIN about 4-6 inches, then to where they exit. Loosely attach a zip-tie to the bottom of this S-bend and attach it to the mast step. This will keep water from coursing down the wires and right into the opening to the cabin.
Can you not look up the end and see what it is you are actually drilling? --i.e., you may be drilling into the skin of the conduit tube as well. I wouldn't consider replacing that plate but would devise something else. I made a wire-exit block out of PVC, painted black, having a hose barb on one end. The hose goes to a through-hull mounted upside-down in the deck. People see it and ask me where I bought it. I made sure I sanded off the 'Charlotte Pipe' logo so I can make up a story for them.
To pull the wires in use a fish tape ($8 or $9 at Harborfreight) That's what they are made for.
Ken, good idea, and I tried it; but especially with cheaper (thinner) fish tapes, they are bend so happily in a curve that poking them up a long narrow channel, like a mast, makes them catch every hole and burr and internal gadget they can. That's why I advocate the PVC-- it's straight to start with. It's also about a fifth the cost of the fish tape at HBT.
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Don't forget to sound dampen your wiring harness with a few zip ties. Don't over tighten them though. Just zip them enough to hold them in place. You put several on your harnes as you slide it in but don't cut the tails off. They will stabilize the harnes but not interfer with other things in the mast. Having the boat on the hook or in the marina with a constant clang of the wire inside the mast is annoying and shortens the life of the wire. The slapping of coax inside the mast can damage the dielectric over time and reduces the signal strength to and from the radio.
How did you secure the conduit to the mast ?Ken, good idea, and I tried it; but especially with cheaper (thinner) fish tapes, they are bend so happily in a curve that poking them up a long narrow channel, like a mast, makes the catch every hole and burr and internal gadget they can. That's why I advocate the PVC-- it's straight to start with. It's also about a fifth the cost of the fish tape at HBT.
I've seen pics of folks using plastic ties, but be careful with coax because the ties themselves can ruin the coax. for coax I'd wrap ties several turns and then loosely zip them down leaving the tails sticking out at alternating angles. The ties keep the wire away from the sides of the mast. This is may not be good if you have internal halyard splices to hang up on, but most people just have rope halyards these days.
Ken
I sort of didn't, Mud. I found it would just stand there. At the very top I ran one sheet-metal screw into the plastic (not deeply enough to hit the wires) but it's wedged up between the masthead sheave box and the side so it doesn't wander away. At the steaming light I got SS seizing wire around it to snug it against the inside. At the bottom it ends a little early of the exit hole so it's just sort of danging. That's about it. The PVC is very light in weight (the wire being way heavier) and the wires exiting for for the steaming light pretty much keep it from sliding down. You have to remember that this is only a sheath for the wires, not a support-- the wires are attached properly with zip-ties and anti-strain clips, so they're not going anywhere. You want the tubing only to protect the wiring from the halyards, which as I said will win every contest between the two.
Bundle up a heck of a lot of electrical tape under each one. Beefing up the sheathing with heat-shrink tubing (in several sizes) may help too. I find the best advantage is to bend or even knot it at the top. We're done with the days when a kink like that ruined your VHF signals.
I started to wrap mine in pipe insulation but it became such a pain in the backside that I just blew it off. It also made the bundle too big in diameter. I ended up throwing away six or eight lengths of the 3/4" stuff (a net loss of about $12.00) when I moved house.
I don't think the potential for noise is as bad as all that. Of course you'll hear it (on a deck-stepped mast not as much as with a keel-stepped one, especially from the cabin). But given one slapping halyard it'll be all but drowned-out.
One of the alternatives is to use plain clear PVC 'aquarium' hose instead; but I found it hard to work with and not at all inexpensive.
Actually all coax sold on earth has a minimum bend radius. This is a critical measurement. If you exceed that bend radius, it's a guarantee that the coax will have a shorter life span. I have seen coax that will check out fine with an ohm meter but will not pass RF at all. This is caused by the migration of the center conductor inside the dielectric. This changes the characteristic impedance in that one area. Knots have no place in a coax. This is not a trivial matter.
This is the same reason most manufacturers recommend no plastic ties on their products. They are too easy to over tighten. That's why you make more than one turn before zipping them. That way you get friction without the damage of squeezing the coax. It's true some modern coaxes can suffer more abuse (especially the small diameter Teflon ones) but us boaters are unlikely to want to pay for that type of coax.
Ken
Yes Ken, I totally agree.
Here are some thoughts. When working some time ago as an avionics tech I saw a lot of radios blamed for bad or weak signals. Owners would believe medeocre techs that said the VHF needed replacing. When all along it was damaged coax. Somebody tieing a knot to keep it from slipping and acting as strain relief. I should thank them for my paycheck, have made lots of money straightening this out when a year or two or ten later these cables have made the radio seem like it is not working so well. Bending a coax does not usually kill the signal right away, but instead it slowly changes the capacitance over months and years that results in impedance changes that convert more and more of the transmitted RF energy into heat or reflect it back, you can slowly effectively develope a dummy load that will SWR check good but will eat your RF power.
The one takeaway is damage to coax is seldom evident right away. It is a concealed damage that like a cancer will slowly get worse over months and years. Wire zip ties too tight, knots, chafing, sharp bends, bad solder joints, cheap crimp or push-on connectors, non water tight connectors, incorrectly weather taped connectors. A truly really huge problem is incorrectly crimped / soldered / assembled coax connectors. Like a cancer these things will slowly kill your radios transmissions. And one day someone's life may depend on a radio.
If you don't have experience in properly building RF cable assemblies, strongly consider buying high quality professionally pre-built coax cable assemblies with the connectors already mounted that are the correct length. Use quality marine coax. Don't coil up the 10 extra feet, order the length needed. Or hire a reputable radio shop to put on the connectors. Dont let them send out the high school kid who has not worked on wires before. It takes years of practice to develope the skills to effectively build long lasting weather tight cables.
Almost any length needed is available on the shelf these days for order though.
Coax slapping around in a mast will also slowly go bad or at least slowly get sicker.
Personally I would rather see a correctly assembled high quality well maintained antenna system mounted on the stern rail than a mediocre system mounted high on the mast. The power boaters seem to do it that way with reasonable success.
Here are some thoughts. When working some time ago as an avionics tech I saw a lot of radios blamed for bad or weak signals. Owners would believe medeocre techs that said the VHF needed replacing. When all along it was damaged coax. Somebody tieing a knot to keep it from slipping and acting as strain relief. I should thank them for my paycheck, have made lots of money straightening this out when a year or two or ten later these cables have made the radio seem like it is not working so well. Bending a coax does not usually kill the signal right away, but instead it slowly changes the capacitance over months and years that results in impedance changes that convert more and more of the transmitted RF energy into heat or reflect it back, you can slowly effectively develope a dummy load that will SWR check good but will eat your RF power.
The one takeaway is damage to coax is seldom evident right away. It is a concealed damage that like a cancer will slowly get worse over months and years. Wire zip ties too tight, knots, chafing, sharp bends, bad solder joints, cheap crimp or push-on connectors, non water tight connectors, incorrectly weather taped connectors. A truly really huge problem is incorrectly crimped / soldered / assembled coax connectors. Like a cancer these things will slowly kill your radios transmissions. And one day someone's life may depend on a radio.
If you don't have experience in properly building RF cable assemblies, strongly consider buying high quality professionally pre-built coax cable assemblies with the connectors already mounted that are the correct length. Use quality marine coax. Don't coil up the 10 extra feet, order the length needed. Or hire a reputable radio shop to put on the connectors. Dont let them send out the high school kid who has not worked on wires before. It takes years of practice to develope the skills to effectively build long lasting weather tight cables.
Almost any length needed is available on the shelf these days for order though.
Coax slapping around in a mast will also slowly go bad or at least slowly get sicker.
Personally I would rather see a correctly assembled high quality well maintained antenna system mounted on the stern rail than a mediocre system mounted high on the mast. The power boaters seem to do it that way with reasonable success.