mast electric wiring

[ebb]

Looking around the web trying to get an idea of what is current on mast wiring.
[EDIT The archive thread "All those wires inside my mast gotta go" might add more info.]

Main focus has been, that since the mast is being rigged to allow dipping, or lowering and raising,
how are the electric wires, the VHF coax, going to be handled at the foot of the mast?
Methods vary and the tips, photos and ability of tipsters aiming complexities
at my level of ignorance & confusion ..just flies on by.

There And Back Again is about all aye know of DC wiring.
Most descriptions and even diagrams don't include the Back Again of wiring - which doubles numbers, volumes and weights of wires that must be bundled, supported, passed through conduit (or not)

and out of the side of the mast, probably, and then down thru a deck fitting to a terminal strip inside - or BETTER: something that
will allow actually combining tricolor & steaming wire sets into plugs & receptacles (Deutsch HD10 Series Connectors www.wirecare.com)

Litlgull's mast will have a Hella tricolor plus anchorlight and a Aquasignal 'masthead' steaming/foredeck light combo.

Question. Is this cable a good idea for the harness:
>Ancor Marine Grade Round Mast Series Cable 14/5.<?
The cable has 5 separated/insulated wires encased in a 1/2" diameter vinyl sleeve (white,green,blue,red,black)
and comes in 16lb 100 foot rolls. 30ft of this stuff weighs 4.8lbs. Single 14AWG primaries weigh .69lbs per 30ft. (16AWG primaries are .48lb per 30ft.)
Jamestown has what looks like a great deal: $150 for 100ft, plus cross country shipping! Is this the time time to get electric wire for the mast?


Would take this 14/5 to the masthead for the LED Hella lamp (NaviLED Trio 2NM Tri-Colour Nav Lamp with All Round White Anchor Lamp
- has no strobe function.) 3 wires: Black Negative - Red Positive/4W Port/Stbd/Stern - Blue Positive 2W Anchor.

Is it legal to use this single bundle to make the circuit? (2 returns - the green and white - and wrap a black negative down the bundle to the terminal or connectors... and back to the battery.....3 UP, 3 DOWN = SIX... Correct?)
Seems logical to keep wires conveniently contained thru to the cabin disconnect terminal under the mast and then on to the battery/panel ? ?
About half the roll, 50ft, would reach from masthead to the companionway where the battery box is.

The other half (minus 15') might be used for the AquaSignal at spreader height.
Changing out the original steaming bulb(12V/10W) for a festoon LED.
But the tiny foredeck 12V20W halogen bayonet bulb has no LED retro, yet.
This fixture is also 2 positive, one negative...3 UP, 3 DOWN = SIX.
Assume the foredeck light gets used infrequently, since it's a night vision destroyer.

Need to be set straight on this.....
The Duetsch HD10 series doesn't have a 12 pole plug. There is a 14AWG goldplated six pole plug. A separate plug for each light could be done.
But you'd have to have two 1 1/2 hoses out of the mast and two 1 1/2 thru-decks into the cabin. Unheard of.
Called up wirecare.com, talked with a very helpful Phillip who told me that the diameter of the six pole plug is 1.14OD (about 1 1/8")
which means that it probably can be passed thru the inside ( 1 1/4") of a Marelon 1 1/2" 253 series hose tailpipe thru-hull.
A second thrudeck would be needed. OR an ondeck junction box that would be impossible to waterproof.

Obviosly plain wires to a terminal strip is going to be the only way. No nice plugs. Damn!!!
All cables and coax, with enough room for future cables, and enough room to pull cable and wire spaghetti in and out of the deck, could be routed thru a single 1 1/2" hosebarb fixture.
The antenna cable could have its own Newmar waterproof thru-deck fitting. But if it can have a disconnect I don't know. Have read that coax should be an unbroken run back to the radio - difficult to do! Would like to do away with the VHF antenna on the masthead if possible?
Feedback? Ideas please.
Thanks.

[Commander 147]

Ebb

I'm not an electrical engineer either but I believe I know enough to handle rewiring Destiny and I'm willing to help you in any way I can.

You said you know that you need "there and back again" when it comes to DC wiring. What is not clear is if you know the "back again" does not need to be a seperate wire for each positive cable going up the mast. You can actually use one single negative cable coming back down the mast for all of the positive cables going up the mast as long as the wire (negative side coming down) is large enough to handle all of the return current of all of the electrical devices on the mast being on at the same time. And here is where LED lights really give you an advantage. For example my mast head all around anchor light is an OGM LED light that draws a whopping .15 amp at 12VDC. That is next to nothing and it comes from the factory with a 20ga pigtail. So the wires going up the mast can be much smaller and lighter if you plan to use LED lights.

So for your example you will need a positive cable for your anchor light, another positive cable for your navigation lights, another for the steaming light and one more for the deck light. That's 4 positive cables and one negative for a total of 5 cables going up the mast. The negative cable just needs to be large enough to handle all of the current going up the 4 positive cables.

Also like you Ebb I'm going to have an Aqua Signal combo steaming and deck illumination light on Destiny's mast. And I know that just above the spreaders is the most common place for this light. However using the CAD software I frequently use and after determining that the deck illumination light was at a 15 degree angle to the mast I was able to determine that to get the light to shine 6 foot in front of the mast (2/3's of the way to the bow) I had to mount it at 7'6" from the top of the mast extrusion. When mounted just above the spreaders the light shines only 4 feet in front of the mast or less than half of the way to the bow's stem head fitting.

For Destiny my mast wiring will go up a PVC conduit (which will also keep the wires from getting tangled in the halyards) so I will use 4 individual cables (I'm currently not planning on nav lights at the top of the mast) bundled together in the conduit. These wires will come out of the bottom of the mast through a hole in my pivoting mast step. The hole in the bottom of the mast step will also allow all water to drain out so none will be left sitting inside the mast to cause corrosion. These wires will feed forward to just behind the forward hatch where they will go through the deck via a Seadog Line 4 pin connector model 426264-1.

My VHF antenna cable will come out of the mast at the same location as the DC wires. To penetrate the deck I'm using a ScanStrut water proof deck seal DS21A-S. This deck seal allows me to pull a cable end up through the deck with the soldered connector in place when I unstep the mast. And while a continuos VHF cable would be the ideal, it just is not practical for me. So I will use a barrel connector just below the deck to connect the mast cable to the cable routed inside the boat for the VHF.

I don't know if any of this helps you with your plans but if not I will try to answer any questions you have. I say "try" because you tend to come up with some pretty good questions.

[ebb]

Thank you, Jerry.
Did order a 100 foot spool of 14/5 from Jamestown. Enough for a single run to & from the the Hella.
From RI across country to CA - wonder what the carbon footprint cost is for that bit of recklessness?
Anyway, if I do come to my senses with your help, and use smaller AWH guage, the wire jacket might be striped and 14AWG singles used elsewhere in the boat..
Still, my assumption is, for EACH nav light: 2 positive THERE and 2 positive BACK-AGAIN with two negs - one of which can be combined into a shared BackAgain with the second light. Still is two wires. Understand the combined BackAgain single might have to be a heavier wire to take the load.

Haven't done the math - but from what you say the 2NM LED Hella won't be pulling much juice either!
The Trio uses 8-28V - consumes less than 2W combined. All round White Anchor less than 2W. Comes with a separate 18" of 3core cable 3X0.75mm(?) with a female plug.
SUPPORTING THE HARNESS
Did estimate that an all 16AWG changeout out for the 14AWG would save about 3lbs in the mast. It's still 11 wires.
Instead of pvc conduit (not knocking it) An interesting alternative is to insert wire bundles into singlebraid polypropelene rope, using it as conduit, and then stretch the rope tight with the cable INside it between eyes or thrubolts at the masthead and the base, thereby hugging, protecting, and supporting the cable. Pull wire out of the braid anywhere. Don't know yet if a 1/2"D cable can be inserted into a 1/2" single braid. I would have four ropes in the mast. Two, up & down, for each light unit. And a fifth for the coax.
In tube conduit you'd still have to support the wire bundles, and guess you have to use those woven metal constriction devices that tighten around wire when you hang'em (like the singlebraid.) Can't remember if I saw them in stainless - It may have been their cost that put me off. The braid idea (gotten from a sailor's blog, which I can blueline here...) will be great later on if the base insert and the masthead fitting are installed with easy removal in mind (hex cap screws, butyl, Forespar TEF45 or Tefgel.) - easy to extract the bundles.

AQUASIGNAL
Must admit that a Cad is a gigantic Detroit convertible from the '60s with fins.
So I found the 1/2 sheet instructions that came in the box with the AquaSignal. One side shows how to mount it - but not where. Reverse side has a sort of chart that when I actually looked at it was a lux or lumen chart showing what happens to the foredeck light at various heights off the deck - like your Cad, I presume. The little drawing seems to confirm your finding:
One lux (lx on the pic) = one lumen per square meter (wikipedia)
One lux is the ambient light of a full moon overhead in the tropics. 100 lux is a very dark overcast day.
At one meter from the light source we have a small cone of 520lux. At two meters the cone of light has increased minimally but the lux has drastically dropped to 130 ! Add a third meter more and it's now 58lux. At 4.5 meters, about where our A/C spreaders are, we have 27lux and a 17degree light-cone on deck - which indicates that the illuminated border stops about 2+ meters (7ft) out from the foot of the mast. (My extrapolation from AquaSignal's picture.)

The fixture is sold as a "masthead/foredeck light". The little chart certainly assumes that one
placement of the light in their illustration is 32.80 feet above the deck producing 5.2lux at the deck in the dark.
A 4+ meter wide light-cone from the mast. It's about 6lux for our 30ft mast, if you wanted the light at the nasthead.. Quite a difference from the one meter light intensity of 520lux to a rather piddly 5.2lux 10 meters below on deck (in their pic.)

USED AS A STEAMING LIGHT
CoastGuard regs have a certain number of feet separating steaming light from the nav lights on deck that you need to turn on when you want to be a power boat. Since this combo has a navigation function, THAT prevails and the foredeck light is secondary, and merely convenience. Too lazy to look it up right now, but it's about a minimal ten feet vertical separation we must have between the red/green lights on the cabin or in the pulpit & on the stern and the steaming light above on the mast.
On a light colored deck there may be enough reflecting illumens escaping the downlight cone at 4.5 meters above the deck - and extrapolated 27lux
with the light cone border at 2+ meters forward from the mastbase. Have no concept of how much light that actually is.
There is also a shadow problem. Someone working the foredeck would be in the way of the lumens coming from the mast. There isn't a single sailing sog on the web who'd confess to wanting the combo light at the masthead.
And it is a lumen problem with a halogen change-out because no LED is yet made that matches the punch that tiny bayonet bulb can produce. A baseball cap with some LEDs in the brim might do better!

For now.
Thanks Jerry. I'm not going to let this go just yet!
Sure like to see how YOU tilt your mast with a central wire feed into the mast cavity. I'm set up for a SantaCruz/Huntington roll version which just
rolls the mast to lower it without adding a plate for a hinge. The front 2 inches on the mast is radiused and plugged with a 3" tall glue-up chunk of G-10 - which certainly could use a lightening hole thru it to pass wire cables into the mast from inside the cabin. Have ordered EPDM chemical rubber tube from McMC for a mast side exit into the deck. Would be nice if the tube could stay clamped when dipping, probably not.....
Have no clue how to waterproof the access if it went thru the bottom plate that the mast sits on. Howzit done? Certainly cleaner....
Would like to see your rig for the upper shroud 'hinge' for the lowering/raising - hope you can share that plate of spaghetti ! !

[Full and By]

EBB,
re: mast wiring bundle
A couple of years ago I refitted a Norwalk Islands Sharpie that had internal halyards inside an unstayed composite spar. I put large wire ties...industrial grade long ones from home depot...about every 18 inches or so ... and let the long tails on. They're sufficiently stiff to prevent the wandering of the bundle inside the spar, and won't foul the halyards. It worked great and I'll use it again. Not my idea...I saw it somewhere and copied it.

[ebb]

Full&By sir,
yes, nylon ties left long in the mast, gets a lot of pros and very few cons in cruiser forums..

And your mentioning it gets me thinking that ONE polypro cord stretched from the bottom to the top inside, instead of having its center filled with wire just be used to support the bundle by simply tying the bundle to the cord. With nylon ties!

Conceptually,
it's arguable that mast wire in conduit is the best way to go with new work because that way the wire is guaranteed NOT to move. Moving wire in a mast causes wear and woe and any number of problems down the line. Leave a couple fish lines in the conduit, so you can add another couple wires or data cable later on. Couldn't do that with an octopus nest of nylon tie.

So, at this moment, for this project,
one cable bundle goes to the masthead for the tri-color.
The coax VHF antenna cable goes separately to the masthead.
Another bundle goes to the Aquasignal combo light.

I'm guessing they all could share the SAME ONE SUPPORT ROPE using ties.
Maybe the polypro could be changed out for a no stretch dyneema cord. Quarter inch?
Or even a 1/16" s.s. wire* (which I read about on one site and now think something like also works with the nylon ties.)
However, a synthetic cord is more squeezable and imco would guarantee that nothing moves, up or down or sideways for the next decade, all bound together like that.
Believe I read where one guy blunted the sharp cut ends of the ties by melting them. For this weight of wire have the long-tail ties closer spaced. 12"?

The mast has to be horizontal for this - with masthead and base ends removed.
So I imagine you'd build the harness by the side of the mast, and when ready pull it thru with the suspension rope.
Stainless eyes fastened inside the mast provide anchor points for tying off.
A two fastener fairlead eye type fitting might be better, as a single shank eye might get cranked badly off the mast wall.
A 5/16" thrubolt might be better - it would, inside the mast, be a ROD to attach strap shackles to -
and might allow some positioning of the whole wire deal, especially for those with internal halyards.
The tighter the support rope/wire the better for the cable clinging on to it AND the lead going from the bundle to the light fixture.
These leads off the bundle to individual fixtures outside the mast are precarious and worrisome. At this point!
__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ ____________
*This guy didn't say if he used a mini turnbuckle to get tension on this wire - but that is a good possibility!

[Full and By]

Hi Ebb,

The eye to secure the strain relief cord is a good idea if you're going to take the mast head casting off...a huge task on most older boats due to corrosion for a number of reasons. I have used nylon cord in the past just fine. It's easy to make up the single harness next to the mast...you'll get the proper exit point for the wires to the combo light below the spreaders. I always use the strain relief cord with a binding hitch around the bundle every foot or so..just loom it up all the way down the mast. I also always put in a spare messenger or two...nylon chalk line works well....parallel to the bundle (not in the bundle...)when I pull it in in case I need to replace a single, bad bad wire for one reason or another.

fwiw...2 cents

best,

Bill

[Full and By]

IMHO, plugs never work except for the day you install them, and wiring hanging inside the mast just attracts the yard goons that want to bang in around in the yard so they can strip off the insulation, or cut it off when they step the mast.....or so I can make the wrong connections in the 3 minutes I have to splice it up when the mast is being stepped at the yard. This error will last for an entire season..a luminous monument to my own stupidity that instant.

So I like the wiring exiting the side of the mast near the heel and getting the whole bundle down below where it is clean and dry (of course) and well lit to make the connections in a terminal strip or J-box.

Take a look at these pics. I've used this technique before and it gets a little better every time.

[Full and By]

Your mast wiring bundle enters the cap through a semicircular hole in the edge of the cap at deck level, rises up over the rounded lip of the deck ferrule, then descends below deck to a J-box just ahead of the mast support on the overhead. Boat wiring comes up the mast support and exits the support near the top...to the J-box. You can put terminals on the wires and keep them on through the seasons ...they'll fit through the ferrule. While not "watertight" (it would leak if the boat were to become a submarine all of the sudden) it relies on the principle that water will not, generally, run uphill. It's a pretty dependable principle. I've used this 4 times over the last 15 years and I'm happy with it. I like fiddling with my wiring connections sitting on a bunk with a beer nearby, not bent double, upside down, bifocals inverted, making the wrong connection with one hand in the dark. I love that the A/C 's have deck stepped spars for this and many other reasons.

Have fun,

Bill

[ebb]

Hey Bill, Thanks for the spare change!

Way more than that, it's an eye opener for me.
Ideas that work. Ideas that are working.
Thanks for sharing.

Getting top and bottom aluminum castings off A338's mast was a humbling experience.
Don't believe it is an experience to share - it was in a word a PITA.

But I will recommend that it be done. SOON.
Of course if your A/C has been in freshwater for 45 years, you probably can and should take the fittings off to see what you got.
Making the decision to remiove the corroded mess on a saltwater boat is an individual call.
It all depends on your relationship with the water gods.

I know now that the mast on A338 was long overdue for renovation when I got to it.
When I first bought the boat I sailed it without proper instruction for a little, not a lot. The gods were with me - the mast couldn't have gone another nautical mile in San Francisco Bay!

Thanks for the binding hitch alternative and telling that a messenger line will work just as well for a tied bundle if you do it right!
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LATER EDIT
Bill, yor next post (#8) snuck in while I was hunt and pecking my response to yor first (#6).
Can say that A338's mast is now redesigned as a rocker, a no tabernackle forward lowering and raising mast. I think I understand Jerry earlier saying that he also is planning on a lowering mast but I don't know how he's doing it because I think I understand him saying that his internal mast wires will go inside the cabin thru a hole in the center of his mast step.
Believe I responded that I didn't think this was possible. The mast moves (ROLLS in my case) forward when being lowered, which means that the wires will be pulled out of the entry hole by the mast while this is happening. Of course the wire terminals will be off the block, would be removed, to allow this if there isn't slack. My imagination toggle has been misfunctioning recently so I may be facing the solution for this problem without actually seeing it. Original Pearson entry was thru a maybe 3/4"D three inch tall pipe in the center of the mast step - which is fine if you remove your mast the $250 marina way. Maybe Jerry will have a very short collar there. Possible!

[ebb]

OK, Bill, I think words in the posts above were changing as I was reading them!

You've got a nice simple system there, as you say, that's good for tinkering.
But wouldn't be too impossible to more than temporarily waterproof with RV butyl tape(not-putty).
And something - a couple short machine screws threaded thru the cap, run into correspoding no thread holes in the upright thru fitting - to keep the cap from getting lost!

Who would have thought of altering the mast step underneath for wire conduit with a simple cove cut into the base with a router? Nice!
Assume that of course.
Haven't done it, but can you really get the wires to do those sharp turns? Wouldn't have thought it possible! Under the mast step.... yes. But under the cap and over the stand up....?

BUT....there are plenty of others here, who aren't rolling their masts, who can use this innovative and direct method.
Your way with the cap, would work just as well for wires coming out the side of the mast.
The wires could be protected where exposed with self-amalgamating tape. (Rescue Tape)

Still waiting for Jerry to tune back in with his solution to direct under mast wire entry. Be SO O O O much simpler !

[Full and By]

Ebb,

Tell me the story about getting the mast head off...did you use chains and a V-8 SUV?

Sawzall?

A small fire of some sort?

I need to do it, I know.

My boat came from freshwater Lake Union, Seattle, in 2011 but spent most of it's life...so far... among the San Juans saltwater.... Standing rigging renewed about 10 years ago, and fitted then for a very nice Schaffer furler. I bought a new North 135% jib last summer and the main is newer and looks great. All new running rigging last summer...I use two-part dyneema halyards so cabintop winches are not required any longer. Some pics are in technical:"Painting C-295's deck"

[Commander 147]

Bill

I'm sure Ebb will tell you his story but I can tell you when I took mine off I was not able to salvage a single screw that held the mast head in place. I ended up drilling them all out, having the old holes in the mast welded shut and when I put it back on I will need to locate the new screws in a new location to avoid the remaining portion of the old screws firmly inbedded in the mast head. They are now part of the head much like a tree entwines it's roots in the soil it grows from.

[Commander 147]

Ebb

I'm tuning back in to show you what I am doing with Destiny's mast wiring. My setup is probably differant than yours but like you my mast will raise from the front of the boat. I'm using the pivoting mast step that came with destiny and have already designed my lifting system which will use the boom as a gin pole and the mast will be stabilized with temporary baby stays. My boom will be relocated in the vang pivot location during mast raising.

But back to the subject at hand. The first picture is of the mast base mounted to the pivoting mast step. You can see a hole in the mast base in this second picture that I will also drill through the stainless mast pivot it is mounted to. Then the wires will come out from under the mast and go forward to where they will go down through the deck. The first picture shows the area where the wires will come out from between the top and bottom of the mast pivot.

[ebb]

Jerry, that's a neat mast plate indeed.
I still have the front hinged Buzz Ballenger version (1/2" pin!) that has the top plate sit flat on top of the bottom one. Not using it.
I like your lofted version because it will allow having a taller collar fitting thru the deck. To resist incidental moisture. My new Huntington Beach style rolling mast sits on another Ballenger plate inside a couple tall vertical plates welded to it, that the bolt goes thru: thru both plates and the mast with the pivot at exactly two inches off the plate the mast rolls & sits on! The plate will most likely be blocked up to the correct height if needed.
So I might construct a collar of sorts. But it's not going to happen.

The possible hole for the wires, inside a very constricted mast footprint, will no doubt bend wires too radically when lowering the mast. A wire 'bundle' is not limp and rope-like They will bind. Maybe a TWO inch diameter scupper could lead unbending wires thru without hanging up anywhere? Yah sure! Waterproofing that would be no problem, would it?

Just checked back to your post. Good thing, because there I discovered that you are entering the mast wires thru the deck well forward toward your pivot. Why didn't I see that? Denial? Anyway that is the only place where there are less corners, so to speak, for the bundle to hang up on. It's only a few inches at the most but it obviously it'll be enough. And below, there's the aesthetic of dangling wires dang in the middle of it all.
Not possible for litlgull's mast because the front of it is cutaway into a radius. Have no doubt yours works as planned!
I'm sure you'll have it figured to lower & raise without messing with the wires at all! That's the deal.

Wonder if I'll be able to do something similar with a rubber umbilical hose off the side of the mast. That's the challenge.
One problem is to find a protective tube of great flexibility that will allow everthing to stay in place when bending through 90 degrees. Don't believe a super flexible UV stable rubber hose exists. Maybe bicycle tire tube?
__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ ____________
__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ ____________
PVC TUBE INSTALLATION
A 'guest' was looking at an old thread: "All those wires inside my mast gotta go" on the whoz-online-page, so I peeked in.
It's the one Scott Galloway started. At the end of the second page, at post #26, bill@ariel231 shows a very neat (if a bit messy) way of attaching pvc tube to the inside of the mast - WITHOUT RIVETS. Thread dates from 2007. Wonder if it's still attached?
Have to go there to find out how........
[mmumble-snarf..how does bill the magician get 6 wires? for the steaming light that is half? the distance up the mast? to turn out the bitty? hole in the side? of the conduit - and then out? the side of the mast?...mumbull...ah humm...?]<brain drain in process.
Not even a well trained mouse with a messenger line taped to its tail could do it...
__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ ____________
way later EDIT: FullnBy Bill asked a direct question about getting the cast aluminum fitting out of the top of the mast. Running thru the thread
I realize he may not have been kidding.
A338 must have always been a saltwater boat. The masthead casting is rough pitted and shows its history.
It is visually still strong:
The stay clevis pin holes show minor wear after four decades. But the flanges the holes are drilled thru are gnawed and gouged.
Can't recall exactly, but having this fitting right here I can see that four of the six tapped holes have been drilled out. Two of the holes have the remains of the old screws at strange angles still inside the holes. There were also some added screws that may be remains of that jib-block tang that
caused disasterous corrosion to the aluiminum above the sheave box, eating it away. There was I remember a great white pad of oxide under the
tang. At the time I didn't understand what that stuff was, I thought it was some kind of bondo caulk!
Essentially the removal process was drilling out existing and broken screws with cobalt bits, probably with increasing bit sizes. It knocked out finally. But it was welded on and compacted with white oxide. These fasteners were/are right at the top of the mast, so I must have been as careful as I can.
The eight or so empty holes are now filled with LabMetal. The sheave slot - corroded open to the top of the mast - may have made it easier to knock out the casting. The casting is imco still pretty massive and heavy. Don't think it's crystallized. Originally a very nice casting. And amazing that rigging was directly connected to it all this time. Almag.
The corrosion up top may have been helped along by stray electrical currents from wiring. Almag cleats, in almost new condition, had to be destroyed to remove them, because the fastenings were corro-welded to the mast. Had to saw off the heel casting - nothing could be done to get that SOB out. In fact the corrosion and perhaps the immense pressure of the mast on the step belled out the extrusion all around the bottom - so it was really jammed!

I'm convinced that anytime we put any metal next to any metal - aluminum to aluminum especially - we must completely isolate the pieces. Decommissioning A338's mast is a great lesson in aluminum corrosion. Can't merely use tape to isolate. Use a teflon paste in every screw hole and between every piece of contact metal AND any other kind of material like winch pads and thru-mast fittings. Use 20mil underground plastic tape and
teflon gel.

[ebb]

Raising & lowering an A/C mast with the navigation harness going thru the step is something
aye hadn't believed possible untill Jerry said he was doing it that way.

You know, so how is he going to do it?
Whether your step hinges on the front of the mast or rolls like the Huntington Beach/Santa Cruz method, the mast does move forward as it dips AND aft again as it comes up to vertical.
It's not much but the harness as it goes thru the step into the cabin has to negociate an immovable and constrained access hole.
The wire in the hollow of the mast can be positioned anywhere but the limited placement of the hole thru the step has to allow the harness to adjust as the mast lowers - and at the same time it is apparantly lengthened forward into a curve.
So it has to be somewhat flexible but still stiff and smooth enough to return to its normal position.

The second problem is waterproofing the hole under the step - coming thru the mast step. Woke up this morning thinking about this -
but didn't have the bright-light revelation you're supposed to get. Maybe it's as simple as putting a hose barb riser (and some way to access a hose clamp) over the hole. A piece of hose could simply extend up into the mast... length yet to be determined : guess 6 to 10 inches. Hose piece and harness in it has to take care of itself when the mast is doing its 90 degree thing. In other words the hose piece would stay captured (not attached) in the mast when the mast is entirely horizontal in the pulpit. You'd see the hose in a tight radius bending 90 degrees into the mast after it's lowered. Its role, along with keeping deck water out, is guiding the wire harness, keep it from kinking. Mast in lower case, the hose might want to flatten a little!

The necessary, adjustment of the harness will be entirely rigged in the hollow of the mast - where there's plenty of room. Harness slack will come off the end of the support rope/cable/tube at the bottom of the mast, maybe it's an extra loop, an extra length of harness to suspend to aid in lining the cable up with the flexible tube. Has to be determined by experiment.
Perhaps an S-CURVE loop of harness could be controlled by a coil spring or bungee. Maybe it's merely matter of keeping the maststep tube lined up with the harness. The harness leads into the hose and barb which is as far aft in the mast footprint as possible, but it may turn out to be closer to the middle of the footprint than the pointy end.
The harness lead inside the cabin has to be tightly locked in place so wires cannot pull away from the terminal block.

SO, the harness/wire/cable is not actually vertically moving at any time. It is attached to the mast or conduit or strain-relief rope. But maybe we need a little added wiggle room at bottom to deal with the hose in the step.
Neither does the hose actually move, it is attached to the deck. Neither is it that the cable moves in the hose - it is the hose moving over the cable. It is the mast changing position that's moving.
The harness needs guidance to stay relative to the hose opening - so it can't get hung up. Maybe a 1.50" hose is the way to go. Big hole - a big barb - big yet short piece of fat slippery polyethylene hose. Harness wire is stiff, if it bends it may want to stay bent. That's a problem!
It may turn out that no finagling is needed at all with springs and bungees - the harness may slip in and out of the pipe unaided. But there is a rub....
Crossbeam in the Ariel is right underneath the mast step. Attempting to avoid the beam, the cable opening into the maststep may have to be made at an angle, rather than vertical. Barb hose fitting could be 90 on the deck - but the hole thru the deck has to avoid the beam as much as possible so as not to weaken it. It's probable that wires have to exit into the cabin side of the beam - aeshetically a real pain! Ariels may have to use the alternative mast side/thru deck access to lead cable into the V-berth area where more casual cable curves are acceptable.
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The challenge is to be able to lower the mast by yourself. If you don't want to do it alone, with casual help you would be able to take it down and pull it up again with a little practice - without having to pay exorbitant fees. I believe Ariel/Commanders are the perfect boat for this skill.
The ability to dip & raise the mast at will for an obstruction ought to be in every rigging upgrade. This ability would sell the boat when it comes to that. Cool, if the mast is down and horizontal on the deck when the boat is ready to haul for the winter. Or even to refresh its bottom.

Jerry, can you reveal a little more on your thinking on this problema? Please...... A Greatful Robber!
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THE SAILOR'S SKETCHBOOK
One way of rigging for SINGLE-HANDED MASTING is explained & illustrated in detail by BRUCE BINGHAM in his Sailor's Sketchbook, International Marine 1983.
His sketches appeared in Sail magazine from 1974 through 1983. It's out of print and should be republished.
The book is a masterpiece - his expose on SINGLE-HANDED MASTING a revelation in itself
- and moreso because his drawings show what has been proven to work. Mast wiring harness is not covered.

It's my lookout to make the 5pg copy of Bingham's great How-To
available to anyone (no cost) who sends me an address on the 'private' mail channel we have here. Tried to cleanup some page notes of mine.
NOTIFICATIONS in tiny letters on the bar at the top of the menu page is the only clue to activity. I never notice it, so prod me here in the Forum if I don't respond promptly.
I go now to Patt's Copy World and make a dozen sets.