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Fat Chance is pissed that she did not get what she wanted while I worked on Windrose :evil: Her mast box and much of the bulkhead is rotted out. I guess those are sins of hard living.... I've sailed the crap out of her, left her on a mooring or her hook for days on end or pulled in the yard exposed to the elements. All the while, I worked on Windrose and did not give her much love. I will decide in the a.m. if I am going to do a new mast box and a patch or a new mast box and bulkhead... I am leaning toward the latter and then the ol' gal will be ready to go around again. Looks like a 8" rat hole in the middle of the bulkhead.... :oops: :oops: Still planning to be ready for Karl's launch (so it will be Fat Chance's refit launch). She is a tough little boat with a lot of grit, I'm glad to be giving her the attention.... on with the show!

ARRRGH!

Angie You must have been getting some water down the mast stump and it had no way to escape. You can fix her wright up. I mixed up a small batch of apoxy 2 or 3 ounces and poured in my mast box When I built her but I don't have the top water tight yet. The mast working ever so slightly seems to cause a small crack. I am thinking I will use some soft calk and just keep checking it. I am going up to the handle factory this week and get me some hickory to make a new set of gaff jaws to replace the cracked one. I am thinking I will make them 2" longer and turn them up on the ends. Pop

I lost my mast overboard one day on Lake Erie due to rot in the mast box. The remaining stump was so swelled up that I couldn't get it out so I took a sawsall to the forward bulkhead and mast box. I cut right along the top and the bottom of the opening in the forward bulkhead and then pulled all of the rot out. I then ditched the mastbox idea, lowered in a 4X4 through a newly reinforced deck down to the bottom where I chocked and epoxied it in. I then sealed up the area around the mast with some thickened epoxy and made her look real nice. Never did replace the center section of the forward bulkhead since, on the PC, the 4X4 mast stub ran right behind it. Figured I didn't need that 1/2 ply to hold up the deck at that point. So my forward bulkhead looks like an O with the mast down the middle.

Pop, you are right about the water... I had weep holes in the box but it still retained moisture.

Scott, I might take a similiar approach and elminate the mast box and just build the chocks up on the sole.... the chocks are good and the deck is good. It is the box and subseqently the bulkhead that rotted.

Angie I had trouble keeping a mast cap over the hole on the compression post. They kept the water out but the mitre joints would always fail. I finally cut it off and packed the opening with some blue foam strips and sealed it all up with removable caulk. This is the second year on it and some small fisures are beginning to show. When it gets bad I will just dig out the caulking and put in some more. The foam keeps the caulk from running down the hole too deep.

I've been planning to make a mast boot for mine for a while, after reading your woes I may just go ahead and get it on there sooner than later. I don't get a lot of water in there but it does get a little in when it rains. A little dab will do ya in though wont it. Hope you don't have too much trouble with the repair

Keith

Note to self: install weatherstripping around masthole and make a tight-fitting boot above.

i used this stuff on the mast and it has been good about keeping the water out - morgaine isn't covered and it rained this spring but the mast box stayed dry - i checked it over spring break when i repainted:



it was cheap and is paintable.

a.

There's a silicone tape called "Rescue Tape" that I haven't played with yet. I saw an ad in the latest Lats & Atts. They now make it in wider sizes specifically for mast boots. Looks like it would be good in a few spots...
www.rescuetape.com

I have some of that stuff I bought at the boat show a few years ago. It was outrageously priced for tape, it was some sort of three roll deal and there just so happened to be three of us :lol: imagine that. I'll give it a try, the thing that so impressed me was it sticks to itself with no adhesive. hock: