Wooden spreaders
I own a 1984 C-30 TR. I purchased the boat 5 years ago and it had the original wooden spreaders. They were in fairly good shape - I went up the mast and added varnish every year. Last year, I decided to put on a set of the aluminum speaders while I had the mast down for some other work. The installation went quite well except for the compression post between the speaders. The aluminum tube will probably be completely frozen in place. I enlarged the holes so that I could remove the old post and then put a larger aluminum post in place. The bolts for the new spreaders will not fit through the old post (at least mine didn't.) I am very happy with the new spreaders - they are a little more aerodynamic than the old ones and are lighter - and ther is no problem with rot! Before I did the work, I had heard that people have done the job without taking the mast down, but I would have found that difficult. Also, if the mast has not been unstepped for a long time, this might be a good chance to rewire the mast and do other maintenance. While mine was down, I added a spinnaker crane, an exit point for the spinnaker halyard and a few other little items. Bill
