Mast Step

[ribbed_rotting_rusting]

Perhaps this is just worrying too much But, when inside Boat today looking to plan backing plates I noticed that the mast step looked to be sitting low (1/4')
When I went to inspect I noticed that it was sweating. The temp. here went from freezing to 58 degrees over the past two days. My worry is that there is water under mast step. I do have the boat covered, and I realize that the metal might still be at freezing temp(no sun). Unfortunately when the mast is stored it sets in a wooden piece that is placed in the actual stepping bracket. Would there be any reason that I could not wait to spring to look at this? I am accumulating parts for other project that will be done then and I am also re bedding some things and rudder bushings. Is it possible that potential damage could get worse by freezing?
I am leery of strengthening with fiberglass, if there is water present would it affect the bonding? Mike

[shamblin]

i would call keith scott  at  THE SAILBOAT COMPANY richlands nc 910 324 4005 for advice.   keith and ( johnnie his wife ) does this kind of work all the time and would know what is important and what is not.   

[skip1930]

R.R.R. OK no biggy. " stepping bracket " I'm going to call it the tabernackle. What's the boat? CP-16 or 19, or larger? A supporting arch or a compression post is the only reason I asked.

Anyway. Take the mast support out of the tabernackle, unscrew the wood screws out of the tabernackle, saving the finishing washers under the head of the screws. See if you can't knock the tabernackle loose with a rubber hammer. If not and it appears to be glued down with some kind of a sealer get a heat gun and run the whole area up to about 160 deg. F. [You can almost touch and keep a finger on the 160 deg. F. area, that's how you know it's up to temperatrue.] Pound some more.

It's possible a fastener may have been missed? So check, check, check, maybe a putty knife forced under the tabernackle will get things moving.

Once you have the son-of-a-gun apart, shop vac all the junque out from under, make it clean, see if it's dry, suck out the water if you have to. Depends on the wood/fiberglassed area under the step...

...here is what I did for my buddy's CP-19. He parks his boat out in the snow every winter, some times the tarp stay on, some times it blows off.  It gets wet and it freezes and thaws. No suprise to me when his tabernackle let go as we were stepping his mast.

So straight a way from the boat launch, we went over to West Marine and picked up a large bottle of Marine-Tex, four ss machine screws with the same head as the wood screws and long enough to go clean through the cabin top, four ss flat washers, four ss locking washers, four ss nuts, and four ss acorn nuts, my cordless drill a bit for the 1/4 inch machine screws and a roll of paper towels.

Going to work we drilled through the soggy wood. For get the vacuum. We sweeped it out. The drilled holes surround the compression post on the inside of the cabin top. Then slathered the whole kit and caboodle up with all of the Marine-Tex, shoved the bolts, finishing washers, and tabernackle into this pool of Marine-Tex,  [if you look, you'll see the end of the hollow mast sits on these screw heads that are centered using the FINISHING washers. Do not use flat washers.] clean through the cabin top. Then it was flat washers, locking washers, and nuts with the extra length of the bolts sticking out for now. It takes around 45 minutes for the Marine-Tex to set up and stop dripping. Hence paper towels. I formed a nice bead around the tabernackle on the sunny side of the cabin top and cleaned up the drip on the inside. Have to nut it up before the threads become clogged with Marine-Tex.

I'd say in less then two hours at the boat launch this job was done and we stepped the mast without incident and were sailing for the rest of the day. Next day I cut off the extra bolt length and removed each nut one at a time [this re-threads the bolt] and replaced these unsightly nuts with more palatable acorn nuts. That was five years ago. No problem yet. And yes he still parks his boat in the snow and it still gets wet and freezes and thaws. It ain't my boat.

" ...I am leery of strengthening with fiberglass, if there is water present would it affect the bonding?.." Bonding to what? Other than a few pieces of wood glassed in as hard points to land a screw in I see no other bonding. Oh some boats, the larger ones I was told have a core 'tween the fiberglass. But I don't know which boats these are. I don't see any on my CP-19. I do worry about the water getting down into the fisher, tiny, little stress cracks in the 'gel coat' on deck and freezing and expanding. That's why my boat is inside all winter.

skip.

[ribbed_rotting_rusting]

 CP-23 1980 vintage. Thanks to both of you. I think why I was was extremely worried was a post by a fellow member
http://s826.photobucket.com/home/mss-cp23 . After reading through the post and viewing the pictures I finally over came my horror to the pics to begin to understand the actual printed matter, it turns out to have been a PO repair for something probably pretty traumatic, or at least dramatic.
By the way Skip, I found bushings for rudder  upgrade in an Amish townwhile taking my sister antique shopping. I think they were $3.10 each. I also ordered the garhauer fiddler for the end of the boom, I noticed the previous set up when sailing with PO and was not impressed. Also in your photo albums there is on the CP-23 sometype of device on the starboard side that looks to be in-line with one of the shrouds.Curious about what it is?