Banging in mast

[mregan]

Was on the boat the other night.  When the boat was rocking side to side pretty well, there was a banging coming from inside the mast about 6' above the deck.  Thought it was the wiring.  The next morning I was poking around.  There was an unused halyard opening right around the 6' mark.  I made a small hook in a metal coat hanger and stuck it in the halyard opening.  Poked around and grabbed onto something.  Pulled and I heard the banging noise.  Sounded like something solid and heavy hitting the mast rather than just wiring.  There shouldn't be anything in the mast should there be?  I'm going to try to put a flexible camera I have at work in the halyard hole to see if I can figure out what it is.

[2ndwish]

You are very likely to find the wiring conduit which has pulled loose (which has caused me and my mooring neighbors sleepless nights!) . Search on "mast conduit rivets site:c34.org" for more info

[Dave Spencer]

Mregan,
It's almost certainly the wiring conduit.  I had the same problem and repaired it when my mast was down this spring.  I'll be posting pictures and a description of how to fix it shortly.  My mast comes down every fall at haulout so it wasn't too bad to fix.  I doubt if this can be done easily with the mast up.

[Stu Jackson]

Or you could have the same issue we had:  some jerk at the factory neglected to install one of the basic wires inside the conduit.  We don;t have radar or anything else up our mast except for the usual suspects.  They just left one wire outside the darned conduit.  Noisy as heck.  Pull the stick, fix the wire, the conduit is most likely just fine.

Or stuff some wire ties or pool noodles up the the mast.  Hmm, hard to get to if you have a deck stepped or even keel stepped mast.

Pull the stick and fix it.

I learned that you cannot learn to live with it.

Slap, Slap, Slap.

Yuck. 

[Ken Juul]

Because of it's size my Radar cable runs outside the conduit.  I did the same thing as you did, used a hook to grab the wire through the spare halyard exit.  Once caught I used an appropriate sized piece (thickness and length) of cord to tie it to the side of the mast through the halyard exit. Doesn't get in the way of the other halyards and stops most of the banging.