Mast Rewiring, Wrong!

[Dan K]

Holiday Greetings to Everyone,

Since we bought Significant Other, the steaming, anchor light, and  wind indicator have not worked properly.   It seemed reasonable that my winter project should be to rewire the mast.  The mast was removed without any problems and it looked like rewiring was going to be a cinch. Wrong!!  It turns out that the wiring conduit has broken free of the rivets and rattles around inside the mast.  In addition, I think the conduit has broken in a number of spots since the entire conduit can be moved up and down about a foot inside the mast. Anybody have suggestions how to get around this problem?

Dan

[Stu Jackson]

Dan, last year this topic came up with our C36 brethren.  I didn't find anything on our website nor did they on theirs.  My best reference for this work is Don Casey's book, "This Old Boat," which has a detailed "how to" section on installing new conduit inside a mast.

[iwillmott]

I don't know how you feel about this but the same thing happened to me when I took down the "stick" to go thru the NY canals. The rivets broke loose on the bottom of the mast from the spreaders down . I had the mast down so I went to a craft shop and bought square pieces of styrofoam about 6x6x6 or so and used 12 ft lengths of 3/4 plastic water pipe taped together to shove about 3 of them up the mast . Worked all last year:no more rattle. When the mast was raised I see-sawed the halyards thru it a few times and no problem. Gasoline will melt styrofaom like butter if you want 'em out . Crude but effective.

[Jon Schneider]

Dan, here are a couple of thoughts, both start with removing the existing conduit.  Once removed, if you want to replace the conduit, here's a good explanation of how it's done (though Stu is right that Don's book also gives an excellent explanation, and it's worth having that book in your library anyway): http://blog.bigsnit.com/2008/04/26/mast-conduit-and-primed.  The alternative is to not have a conduit at all once you've removed the original one.  Instead, bundle the wires together while they're outside of the mast and use three or four 12" cable ties around the cable bundle every 18" so that the tails of the ties radiate in opposing directions.  Then pull the cable bundle through the mast.  This will effectively keep the wires from banging against the inside of the mast. 

[Dan K]

Thanks for the helpful suggestions.  To replace the conduit, I would either have to drill out all of the rivets or drill new holes.  The total Length of the mast is about 60' and if there is a hole every 6" that would be about 120 holes to drill.  I'm not sure I have the patience for this approach.  Are there any downsides to removing the conduit as John suggests and bundling the wires together?  I ordered Casey's book and will wait for it to arrive before making a final decision. 

[Jon Schneider]

There are two downsides that I can think of.  One is that I don't think anyone really knows how long the cable-tie method will last.  I heard from one guy who had used this trick that it had lasted (so far) for eight years, but that's the longest tenure I know of.  The second potential downside is that it might (and again, I don't know; I'm just speculating) make threading a new line (e.g., a halyard) through the mast a bit more challenging while the stick is up.  I would imagine all those cable ties could get in the way, but maybe not.  Oh, BTW, the guy who used this method also wrapped his wire bundle in foam pipe insulation (the stuff you'd use on your hot water pipes at home).  He claimed it was the belt-and-suspender method because even if the cable ties all gave out, the insulation would keep the clanging noise of the wires to a minimum.  In fact, he did the insulation method first without the cable ties for a year and was pretty pleased with the result, but when he heard of the cable-tie method, he figured he'd eliminate all sounds from the wire bundle (which he claims to have done). 

[Tom Soko]

Jon,
My wire conduit in the mast was full, so I used the cable tie method for securing the radar cable in my mast about 12-13 years ago, and have not had a problem.  Not being exposed to UV rays, I'm guessing the cable ties will last a LONG time.  I have changed halyards since then, also without a problem. 

PS-The wire conduit has pop rivets every 3-4 feet or so (from memory), not every 6".