Commander 227

[Commander227]

I stripped down The Princess's mast this spring to do a few mods. I had to drill out a fair amount of the screws and the mast base took me over an hour to remove with a torch and slide hammer.
I wanted to run the halyards internally. I just took out the large main halyard shieve and used Ronstan blocks in the slot. The spinnaker halyard runs to a block on the mast head fitting, then dives into the mast a foot or so from the top.
I pop riveted 1/2" pvc waterline inside of the mast through some of the holes for the old sail track for a wire chase. I did not want the wires to get fouled up with the new internal halyards. I also did not want the wires banging against the inside of the mast.
The mast has had its share of hardware and antennas bolted to it over the years so I had a buddy weld up the extra holes. I had the mast re anodized but I was unhappy with the results so I painted it with left over Awlcraft from the deck paint job. I found a place that would do the anodizing for $50. The problem was that the rosette welds which disappeared completely after I sanded them down showed up vividly after the anodizing. the mast also had a slight green hue to it.
I replaced the sail track with Harken micro traveler track and added a track to the front for a spinnaker pole. I lashed an old traveler car to the sails head board and stitched plastic slides on the rest of the sail to fit the track. I can use the Harken batt car system on my next mainsail. I ran the track down the mast low enough so the boom slides on the same track. I had to fabricate a new goose neck fitting.
Pic #1 Welding up holes
Pic #2 The yellow line through the clutch is the jib halyard, being I have a roller furling jib there is no need to have a full halyard sitting on the mast all summer so I just attach extra line when I'm going to drop the sail.
The other line is for the internal spin pole topping lift.
Pic #3 Main and spinnaker halyards.
Pic #5 Mast head