The saga continues:
Now that the mast is down, the old paint is stripped off and the aluminium is polished, the mast base block has been removed, and new chainplates are on order, I have time to evaluate a new problem. A small part of the lower end of my VHF Radio antenna is corroded. This was hidden by rigging tape, until I decided to remove the tape. My VHF antenna runs continuously from the mast head down through the deck to connector inside of the cabin. This seems like a good design, since the connector can be removed by a simple un-screwing and can be easily shoved up through the deck if the mast is un-stepped. I just did this.
However, the coaxial cable just above the deck flexes at least twice a day to an extreme entent as a result of lowering the mast during the tabernacle operation. So it appears that over time the wire failed where it flexed. Corrosion is evident in discoloration of the exposed copper coaxial wire sheeth. It does not appear that the copper wire sheeth in theg coaxial cable was tinned.
So the best thing to do is probably to pull a new coxalial cable through the mast, but here is the problem:
The coaxial cable enters the mast a few inches above the mast base block It is met on the opposite side by four electrical wires. A black and white pair run about ten feet up the mast to the steaming light, and an orage and white pair never emerge from the mast. The coaxial cable and all four wires are bundled inside of a series of taped foam tubes that look very much like the foam tubes that you put around household water pipes in cold climates to keep them from freezing, except that the foam in my mast looks like it might be blue in color.
Hmmm: Is this an original Pearson installation, or someone else's bright idea? I can't pull the coaxial cable without pulling the four electric wires with it. I have ascertained that the orange and white wires don't run as far as the mast head, and the coaxial cable in the vacninty of the main halyard sheeve is not encased in foam.
It is my guess that the foam tubes run up as far as the spreaders.
The possibility that that orange and white wires may run into the spreader tubes is somewhat disconcerting, becasue that means those wires might not pull easily. There are not spreader lights, and no opening in theh mast that might have once been used as exit ports for those wires.
With the foam tubes, you don't have good visibility up the mast, even with a flashlight, but I can make out what appears to be a solid tube running between the spreaders. This could be an illusion. It might only be the aforementioned wires, or it could actually be an aluminum tube, which functions as an integral part of the spreader support system. I thought that removing one of the spreaders would be a good idea so that I could see what happens to that orange and white wire pair before I try to pull the wires, but alas, I would have to destroy the ss screws to remove them. The nuts are loose enough, but the screws seem to be immovable.
1. So has anyone found foam bundled wires in their masts?
2. Has anyone pulled the wire in your mast and replaced it?
3. What materials and techniques did you use to pull your new wires either up or down the mast. Since I am have this foam to deal with, and I am not planning to remove the mast head, it seems easier to pull the wires down and out and down and in, rather than up and out and up and in.
4. How did you protect your new wires from chaffing and your ears from the ringing of wire against aluminum at future anchorages. Encasing the wires in rubber hose has been suggested to me. It would have to be soft rubber hose however.