All those wires inside my mast gotta go!

[SkipperJer]

I did connectors last. I laid out all the wires on the ground next to the mast allowing extra length for goofs, tied it all together with the wire ties, ran the electricians fish from the top of the mast to the bottom, rat-tailed the tip of the harness and hauled it through in one pass. It makes it all worth the effort of pulling the masthead to make this easier. It was a bit of trick fishing individual wires through exit holes for the steaming light but not too bad. I bought a bag of assorted grommets at Home Depot and slipped them over the wires after they were through and had reasonable luck pressing them into the holes. "Reasonable" meaning I guessed wrong on sizes and trashed a couple in the process. Connectors went on last once wires were outside the mast.

This is all the accumulated knowledge acquired watching and helping a number of other people in the local DIY boatyard do things like this before I stuck my neck out. You won't find me chiming in about some of the projects I tried cold turkey. Most of those have not gone well. Well, they've all gone well--eventually!

[Scott Galloway]

SkipperJer,

What size (length) wire ties did you use on the wires in your mast. Did you bundle the coaxial cable in with the electrical wires, or did you attach wire ties to them each independently?

Here is what came out of my mast today with a lot of work. All of the foam was in good shape, but in addition to the more-or-less closed cell foam tubes, there were periodic wads of dark green open celled stuff. It was quite a job to get all of that foam through mast, particularly below the spreaders where lots of bolts protrude on the inside.

All for the stuff in the two images below came out of my mast today. Just removing this stuff made me feel that putting foam inside your mast is a bad idea. I can just guess what the weight aloft might have been if that stuff was wet. Thanks to my three-section extendable aluminum boathook I was able to drag the foam out when I could get it a few feet below the spreaders. It took hours of very frustrating work. The dark green wad of foam on the far right was one of three similar wads that came out with great difficulty. These wads were nearly the diameter of the mast, and they were open cell. Part of one is still in my mast at the spreaders. I am pulling it through the spreader holes piece by piece with a screwdriver and a pair of long nosed pliers. The pile of dark green foam shards in the image on the right came out through those holes. More to follow, before I try to force the final green wad down the mast.

Even the tubular stuff wads up if the bottom end of it snags on a bolt, Don't use it.

The spreaders are off because I discovered that the mysterious red and white wires went into the spreaders. They could not be pulled without removing the spreaders, pulling four strands from one spreader and two strands from the other, and then cutting the wire.

[SkipperJer]

I don't remember what size ties I used. It was one of those moments in the Home Depot aisle (I try to shop there first) where I said, "hmm, how big is that mast?" and just bought a bag of them. They got used up on various other projects. A three-tailed star every 18" or so bigger than the internal diameter of the mast was my goal. I think mine were probably heavier than they needed to be but in the end that made no difference. Too small or light in weight might not keep a lot of wire from slapping around. You could try making a star every 12" if in doubt.

I wrapped everything together but did twist the DC wires on the theory that if there was any way to interfere with the RF, twisting might mitigate the effect but I'm not smart enough to know that for sure. I suspected that making seperate bundles didn't offer any advantage. The radio and the lights seem to work fine so if I'm wrong, its not by much.

My guess is your boat had deck lights on the spreaders at one time. I've seen lots of them with the wire exiting the outboard end of the spreader and doubling back halfway to the light. Did they look like they were cut-off at the ends?

[ebb]

SkipperJer,
Could I verify - you twisted all the DC wires together. I guess they are in a teisted bundle using appropriate ties that keep them twisted.
Then the coax cable was bundled to that with the regularly spaced cable stars.
Just want to make sure because I often read that the wires and cable should be separate. But none are specific as to how separate. I would guess, also, that the twisted bundle configuration contines back to the panel after the junction box under the mast??? The coax following the same path together with the DC. Do I 'see' it correct?

Instead of spreader lights, I like the idea of a single light on the mast at the spreaders. Don't know if this is a lega\l forward facing 'masthead' light, but the fixture I've seen is often dual purpose. How much trouble is it getting the wires to that spot? Luck?
Thanks.

[Scott Galloway]

Thanks SkipperJer,

I'll probably go with 8 inch ties every 18 inches. Now I have another question:

I'll post this question on a new thread also, but here it is anyway for all who have wandered this far down in this thread, since it makes sense to clarify this issue here also:

The "Spreader Tube" inside the mast: Should there be one?

Please find a photo of my mast in the spreader area with the spreaders removed on the new thread "Spreader Tube" if you need toi see a photo to understand this. There are three holes in the mast in a vertical line. The top and bottom holes are for the bolts that through bolt the spreader bases together. The twisted white and red wires came out of the middle hole protected by a snug fitting heavy short plastic sheath (perhaps heat shrink tubing).

There were no spreader tube por bushings inside the mast.

Earlier in this thread, Ebb wrote, "The spreader tube is there of course to keep the thrubolt from squeezing the mast where all the work is concentrated, spreader sockets and the four lower shroud tabs. It is installed from outside into holes that just fit the tube."

Sometime ago on this website, on the "Spreader Socket Broken Thread, Bogel wrote, "Spreader bases are through bolted with no bushings inside the mast. Original upper bolt was a 1/2" x 4.5" and the lower bolt was 1/2" x 5". Lower bolt also holds the lower shroud tangs."

I have reviewed the manual and find no mention of a spreader tube in the text, in the specifications, in the drawings or in the sample Ariel equipment inventory. On the other hand no spreader detail drawing is provided.

So my question is: Was a spreader tube provided during construction by Pearson in the Ariel. My Ariel is #330. If not, have owners added such a tube?

I am not quite sure how exactly one would get wires into a tube and down the mast anyway if you wanted spreader lights.

And by the way, my spreader wires went all the way to the ends of the spreaders and there never have been any holes in the tubes for exit ports. The port spreader wire doubled back on itself and ran into the starboard spreader as I recall. The continuous two wire run therefore ended in the starboard spreader. The ends of the wires were nicely taped with electrician's tape.

[SkipperJer]

Two bundles was way too complicated for me but that doesn't make me right. I twisted the DC wires then made the wire-tie stars to hold it all together. Like I said, everything seems to work fine. If I'm getting signal loss it has not been a problem yet. I put in a multi-pin connector between the new wires in the mast and the old ones going down the compression post. I don't know if those old wires are twisted.

Because of where my radio is located, I pulled the VHF wire out the side of the mast at the bottom and ran it through a Blue Sea CableClam to the radio rather than go to the trouble of pulling another wire down the post, across the bilge then up to the radio location.

I already had a steaming light and hole in the mast. I had to fish the steaming light wires out with a skinny screwdriver. It was tricky but doable. Like I said a few posts ago, I laid it all out on the ground next to the mast first to get the lengths right, tied it all together, then pulled it through. The steaming light wires came out of the bundle near the hole and I teased them through one at a time. Not elegant but it worked.

[Scott Galloway]

SkipperJer,

Thanks for all of the advice. Were I to have more than one wire running to the mast top, you have convinced me that the wire ties would be the way to go. I only have lonely coaxial cable running up to the masthead and no electric wires pastthe steaming light. I do not wish to bundle the steaming light wires to the coaxial cable, since I may need to change one without the the other, and sine the steaming light is a very short run 12 feet up the mast. Today I took a bunch of wire ties and ran some simulations using various tie sizes and coaxial cable.

Unfortunately with one coaxial cable to pull up the mast, I discovered that the wire ties would not stay at 60 degrees from one another for long. A nice smooth round cable is not irregular in anyway, and the ties do seem to rotate with applied pressure. I assume that a repeated small force applied to them by a repetitive motion would result in a change of the relative position of the wire ties on the cable. Certainly, when I cranked them down hard enough to compress the cable (I am not sure that compressing the coaxial cable is a good idea anyway) I could still rotate them without applying excessive pressure. I tired eight inch, six inch and four- inch wire ties and all with the same result. I tried a wrap of various types of tape around the cable first, including some of that self-fusing sticky stuff, but finally, I concluded that the cable ties would rotate over time. But if I had a two or three wire bundle to tie with a set of three wire ties, it would be a different matter. The irregular shape of a wire bundle would prevent the wire ties from slipping.

So after all of the horrible things that I wrote on this thread about foam, I bought seven of the closed cell six foot lengths of 1/2 inch gray foam from Orchard Supply Hardware at $1.29 a piece. After first looking over my shoulder to make sure that no Pearson Ariel or Commander owners were within view, I hoisted five of those foam tubes withe coaxial cable up the mast to the main halyard sheave, and the better part of two of them with the electric wires up to the steaming light.

The entire installation went smoothly. I ran a pull cord inside of the tube to the top of the mast, so that I can later add an anchor light if I choose to do so, but right now, I don't choose to do so. I don't want my mast any higher than it already is bridge-wise. I am not keen on adding unnecessary weight aloft.

I really do like the wire tie idea. It is elegant and very cleaver. I gave it a shot for my application, but decided to revert to the world of foam. I bought the wire ties and intended to use them, but when I began to test the first few wire ties, I discovered the rotation problem.

On another note: The base of my mast is not hollow. Because I have a tabernacle set-up, there was and shortly will be again a block of wood in the base of my mast through which the tabernacle "axle" bolt runs, so I would have to either un-step the mast and pull that wood block or pull the masthead to remove a wire bundle tied with wire ties. If I ever get the urge for a mast-top light of some sort, I should able to pull a couple of wires through the remaining space inside my foam tube, by using the pull cord that currently shares the space with my coaxial cable

The old foam tubes that I removed from my mast were much larger. They were three-foot lengths of whitish foam. The ends were not taped together, so they snagged on bolts in the mast coming down. Even worse, they were interspersed with pieces of dark green open celled foam sheets that were rolled and taped and then crammed up into the mast. This made removal of the foam and wires a most difficult process. I am pretty sure that the old foam was in that mast for at least thirteen years, so the new foam should last at least the fifteen-year expected life of my new rigging.

I taped the ends of my new foam tubes and then taped the taped ends together with PVC tape. The foam tubes form a more or less solid foam conduit that easily slides up and down the mast. Since the foam tube is smaller in diameter, I can shift it off a bolt should the foam snag on one of the bolts. Although I would appreciate not having any foam in the mast from a moisture retention standpoint, my mast appears to be in very good shape, and the old foam was bone dry and showed no signs of mold or mildew despite the large wads of open celled foam present. Perhaps the dryer climate out here helps.

It is rather embarrassing to admit that I went this way after all of the whining I did about removing the old foam, but I really do think for my application, this was the best solution.

In the photo on the left below, the yellow discoloration on the mast wall below the sharp line that is visible just below the ends of the foam tubes is the area were the wood block fits into the mast base. The block is radiused on the front, as is the mast, to permit the mast to lower forward. The blue and white string is my pull cord. The red color is PVC tape. The bottom section of the foam tubes was secured with one inch cable clams clamped around the 1 and 1/2 inch foam tube. The cable clamps were pop riveted to the mast through existing holes in the mast wall. The top of the VHF antenna tube is secured to the mast wall at the top of the mast.

[Theis]

As for the PVC piping, my recollection is that I installed a 1 1/4 pipe and today it is full - with the antenna cable, masthead light, 3/4 light and foredeck downlight (the latter two are a single fixture). I used #12 wires throughout.

You will want to rivit the pipe to the mast with aluminum rivets. I have three sets of two rivets (One rivet per set might do). There use to be a single screw at three locations (top, bottom and middle), but on a cruise the screws stripped and the PVC pipe became a clanger - loud an clear.

Also, my pipe, as I recall was 20 feet which carried the lines to the 3/4 light.

I have an internal wire rope jib halyard, and one of my concerns has been the halyard chafing against the electrical wires. I have had no identified problems however.

As for the spreaders, I have two large through mastbolts that tie the two spreaders to the mast. There is no internal tube. The spreaders are tight, with lock nuts, but do not compress the mast. Incidentally, Solsken is 1962 build year.

[bill@ariel231]

trolling through some older posts i noticed this one. The Don Casey pop rivet method of securing a conduit in the mast looked like a difficult solution to implement.

I also fitted a PVC conduit into A-231's mast, but used a dollop of '5200 every 2 feet instead of the pop rivets mentioned above... a messy job but very easy to do. Has anyone else tried this method?

no problems with noise or chafe with any lines running internal to the mast (like the topping lift).

[Scott Galloway]

Bill,

Very interesting. How did you apply the 5200 without it being deployed ( as in smeared) at unwanted places inside your mast? Also PVC conduit would seem to put a lot of weight aloft.

I am interested in knowing if anyone has messed around with the new LED tricolor mast top lights with their very tiny and very light electic wires.

[bill@ariel231]

Scott

My method was only a little different from the pop-rivet method:

1. The mast head was stripped of the sheave and hardware to give me room to reach a couple fingers into the mast head. The mast was laid out on the lawn with the hole for the vhf and mast head wires on the ground side of the mast (I wanted the pvc to settle to that side when glued up).
2. Three ten foot lengths of pvc conduit were glued together and cut to length as a unit. In my mast, the conduit starts 6 inches above the base of the mast and terminates a couple inches below the hole drilled for the mast head light and vhf. I also predrilled a 1/2 inch hole in the conduit for the steaming light and spreaders. With the conduit ready for install it was placed on the ground in line with the mast base.
3. With the pvc conduit rotated so that the glue side was”up” I applied a 1" bead of ‘5200 approximately 16-24 inches on center along the length of the conduit. (this is shown in the left side of the sketch below)
4. Now for the messy part… at this point I passed the conduit and its dabs of ‘5200 into the hole in the base of the mast. This part is messy even when wearing gloves.
5. With the conduit now in the mast “glue-side-up” I now moved to the mast head. Reaching a couple fingers through the slot for the masthead sheave it was possible to rotate the conduit glue side down.

After a wait of 24 hours, the conduit was ready for wire and the mast reassembled.


cheers,
bill@ariel231

p.s. As for weight I wasn't too worried I used 3/4 inch pvc conduit. My bigger concern was keeping the wires clear of the internal lines in my mast.

[ebb]

I want to thank you all for sharing your advice and experiences on this subject.

I've downloaded these two post pages to study and have as reference.
It's eighteen 8 1/2 X 11 pages of good stuff.

F A N T A S T I C

Thanks!