Mast Conduit Rivets

[Ron Hill]

Dave : You do great work!!, with a nice write up!

I'd suggest you send it to John Nixon so he can publish it in the C34 Mainsheet tech notes.  The pictures are great and I'd add a pix (if you can ) on how your extra conduit worked to hold the one inplace that you were drilling and riveting in place.

Super job !!

[Dave Spencer]

Thanks Ron.  Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of our improvised conduit guide.  While we were getting this to work, my wife was struggling with the 20 ft long guide and I was lying on my back under the mast trying to drill up into the conduit so photography wasn't our top priority.  The guide was not ideal to say the least.  At 20 ft long, the conduit guide was not stiff enough to give a predictable force on the mast conduit to hold it in place.  In Post #6 of this thread, you suggested using a 2x8 to hold the conduit.  I think this would be terribly heavy and may not fit but a couple of 10 or 12 ft 2x4s scabbed together would certainly do a better job than the conduit I used and would be half the weight (and a quarter the cost) of 2x8s.  Ideally,the 2x4 would have a small piece of wood with a groove or a V cut into it screwed to the end to hold the conduit in place while drilling and riveting.  I'd want to check clearance to ensure the gooseneck,mast winch and other bolts and protrusions into the mast don't foul the guide but If I were to do this again, I'd recommend using 2x3 or 2x4 lumber that is much stiffer and heavier than the 1" conduit I used.