Shortening the mast.

[CharlieO.]

Pete, is your mast mounted on your fly bridge deck or the aft cabin roof?
I'm trying to stay under 17' for ease of Champlain Canal and eastern Erie Canal. If I ever get to Buffalo I will have to drop the mast.

 

[CharlieO.]

Shortened mast installed. I also redid all my stanchions by filling the holes with thickened epoxy and through bolting them and bedding with 5200.

 

[Hyperion]

Nice work. I did the same when mine snapped due to hidden rot and lowered to the point where I now open 1 bridge instead of five in the Miami River.

 

[SIBERNUT]

I'm having mast questions & just did a new post. I can understand a radar cable not going up. But change the lights to LEDs and a multi conductor wire should be a piece of cake.
As a second note, ya know how many small sailboats are rotting in back lots of marinas? A mast off one of them would be my go-to solution if mine doesn't work out.

 

[Comodave]

I added a mast to a trawler that we owned. I got the aluminum pole at a used boat equipment store. It was a spinnaker pole that got damaged. I didn’t need the whole pole so I just cut off the damaged area. Had a spreader welded to mount the various antennas on.

 

[Bmarler]

I'm having mast questions & just did a new post. I can understand a radar cable not going up. But change the lights to LEDs and a multi conductor wire should be a piece of cake.
As a second note, ya know how many small sailboats are rotting in back lots of marinas? A mast off one of them would be my go-to solution if mine doesn't work out.

That’s exactly what I did when my wooden mast rotted out. I cut the top 12 feet off it, made new spreader mounts, added a winch. Mast had a conduit inside already for wiring and antenna cables. Made my own tabernacle.
Worked out very well.

 

[CharlieO.]

So I did finally get around to measuring my shortened mast. Right at 16 1/2 feet from waterline to tip of anchor light. Plenty of room to clear those 17’ bridges on the Champlain Canal now.

 

[Choices]

In my opinion the spreader did nothing, so I removed it. Cleaned the mast up quickly.

The spreader is to keep the mast from buckling side to side. Not really much chance of that on mine.

Can you flip mast over and just redrill it to cut off the bad spot? Would work if mast is not tapered.