Advice on Mast Step

[hinmo]

Need some advice on the mast step of my "new" 1982 CP16



Looks like the PO (s) added a wood step to mitigate the cracking on the cabin top. Should I check the cabin top pad for moisture and add flowing epoxy? The whole look of it makes me nervous and it did not seem that stable when the tabernacle was on it.

PS - it has a newer tabernacle that I have removed in the picture

[skip1930]

Forget everything I said below under this top post.

I looked~see again at an enlarged picture on your Photobucket and noted the four machine thread screws with Philip head slots ... NOT nuts. [bad eyes]
What and where do these screws screw into?

I hope the screws screw down into nuts somewhere ... either under the plywood pad [not the best]. Or drilled clean through the cabin overhead and nut-ed from inside [better].

A lot of 'hold down power' is not needed for a tabernacle. The standing rigging dose the majority of the mast holding.

skip.


Forget this --> Since this is no longer factory stock, what matters is that the four machine screws coming up through the plywood start INSIDE the cabin's overhead.
Read--> drilled clean through. Not just wood screws holding the tabernacle down on the added plywood pad. Don't care about the ply wood pad and just fill the crack with some epoxy and be done with it.

These bolts should be pushed up through the overhead with flat washers. Is there a compression post or supporting arch under the tabernacle?
With a compression post, these four bolt heads will be located around the post and seen from the cabin's inside. O.K..

I'm assuming that under the ply wood pad is a nice layer of nice hard resign.

What is not clear in the picture is if the four nuts hold the tabernacle down AND four additional fasteners are located on closer centers under the mast?

So I'd just bolt down the factory tabernacle with these flat washers and nuts. ... oh wait. Problem.
Those machine threads have nuts on them to hold the factory tabernacle down. Hummm ... ?

Can the mast be lifted, raised, and set back down on top of the nuts that possibly have threads sticking through the nuts? Who knows? Location, location, location.


The original factory idea was to set the oval ring of the mast [a cross-section] on top of the four screw heads. The mast never sits on the tabernacle. These screw heads are assembled with a flat washer next to the tabernacle and then the screw heads sit DOWN into finishing washers. The height of the screw heads with both washers is about 3/16 of an inch above the tabernacle. And it is these four screw heads that the mast sits on.

Sure, the tabernacle the way it is now, can be bolted down but sitting the mast up on the nuts is another story.

I'd run 4~ 1/4-20 stainless steel oval head machine screws down from the top with finishing and flat washers that are nut-ed inside the cabin with flat washers.
Once all assembled and all epoxy and 'goop' is cured, then go back and un-thread one nut at a time and replace these with decorative acorn nuts. May have to cut away enough threads to seat the acorns down tightly.

Clear as mud? skip.

[hinmo]

skip - they only screw into that little wood pad (dont think its plywood, but all the same...).

This boats so small compared to my other beasts, I dont mine undertaking some retrofit/glass work, but whats really needed?

Thanks for responding

[skip1930]

Well O.K. now. IF those four holes correspond to the tabernacle holes, just continue the holes clean through the roof of the cabin and put a flat washer and nut on each 1/4-20 machine screw from inside the cabin. With your favorite sealing goop. Then just step the spar normally. If the mast has never been stepped with this block in place the turn buckles will need to be relaxed the thickness of the pad plus a little bit more 'for the wife and kids'.

As to the post below. Compression Post? O.K. that's what I was asking ... in a round-a-bout way. You do have a compression post. Some sailors around here don't have a compression post. I have heard of arch's. I've never seen one.

skip.

[hinmo]

c-post looks solid