Interesting ideas for getting wires through the deck and having them flex for mast lowering during a tabernacle operation, but we may be making too much of a big deal out of this. My VHF antenna coaxial cable had been installed for many years before we un-stepped the mast for repairs a couple of weeks ago. I did not discover the crack in the plastic outer layer of the cable because the radio quit working. It was working just fine until we disconnected the antenna. I merely discovered a crack and some corrosion when I removed the rigging tape that covered the cable from a point inside the mast to the deck port.
Therefore, this arrangement survived many years of use without failing. Perhaps it was a bad design, but my electric wires (four of them) and my coaxial cable exit the deck jut aft of the forward hatch cover. That means that they are somewhat forward of the mast, so when the mast is being lowered, there is considerable flexing of the wires and of the cable during the operation. Since there is a hard spot where the wires run through the deck, the section of wire just above the deck port would probably flex the most, and that is where the plastic outer layer on the coaxial cable cracked, but since that is exactly where people could and probably did step, the tabernacle is not necessarily the culprit.
When the wind is blowing, and you are standing at the base of the mast to reef the main or for another reason, usually the last thing you worry about is stepping on the wires.
I have no intention of installing a quick disconnect to remove either the coaxial cables or the electrical wires before I lower the mast, however a piece of plastic flexible conduit around the wires might better shield the wires and cable and prevent them from kinking.
SkipperJer, I am familiar with the Cable Clam. West Marine stocks them but agree with Ebb, that device looks like it would work well with coaxial cable and perhaps with duplex or triplex wire cable, but not so well with bundles of separated wires. I prefer the design of another device that has a rubber gasket. West Marine stocks them also, but I do not recall the manufacturer. These devices have a screw on top that forces the gasket down and in on the wire. The nice thing about this second device is that the point of entry for the wires is an inch or so above deck, and this allows you to tape the whole unit with rigging tape.
I am a great believer in rigging tape. Take a look at the low-tech solution on my boat in the photo below. Ignore the nasty bridge-impact caused crack and the odd epoxy mast step. That was then and the second photo is now. The second photo reflects the repaired area, but get beyond that and take a look at the strange little aluminum cylinder in the first photo. That little guy was just pressed into a hole in the deck and then glassed or epoxied (probably epoxied) onto the deck on the outside of the cylinder. A cluster of four wires were then shoved up through the hole and the cylinder and the whole wire bundle was taped with two layers of black hard-to-remove tape, one layer of hard and brittle white tape and a final fourth layer of that sticky pliable white rigging tape (I applied that final layer and it never leaked after that.
So low teach is an OK solution for wires. No tape solution is forever, but the section between the mast and deck is readily accessible and you can easily replace that small section of rigging tape every few years. What lies up the mast is another matter.
That aluminum cylinder was removed to accommodate the deck repairs as can be seen in the second photo, which shows the two holes covered by blue tape, since it was drizzling this afternoon when I took the photo.
Now if the wires and cable came out of the deck closer to the side of the mast, the wires would not flex quite so much, but they would be in the way of the blocks that run the halyards, boom vang and down haul back to the cockpit, so I will have to live with this wire deck port location.
Please keep in mind that in the first photo the forward two holes in the (missing) mast step plate and the brown-colored epoxy base below it (shown in the first photo) are directly over the strong back. The bolts that ran through those holes ran into holesdrilled all the way through the strong back. The nuts that held those bolts are still captive inside the strong back. I am not sure whose bright idea that was, but perhaps that was the location of the original factory mast step plate bolts. I don't know. Drilling holes at that location would seem to weaken the strong back, so I am not sure why it was done.
Those holes in the mast deck plate and deck will now be further forward in the V berth area. So that should give you some perspective when you are thinking about where else you could run wires though the deck without having them exposed in the main salon or inside of the strong back, in the way of the mast base blocks or underfoot.
Reply With Quote
