Mast Rigging and Wiring

Had some good progress in the last few days, and a few setbacks.

On the plus side, we got the bulk of the welding completed. This included the final brackets and winch pads welded to the mast, and the completion of the down rigger pole strut brackets and pad eyes. Everything should bolt up nicely when we get the boat to Mare Island for the install:

I added a sail track upgrade from Tides Marine. It's basically just a UHMW sail track that slides over the existing standard 7/8 stainless sail track. The UHMW material is super slippery and they say it allows the sail to go up and down with fewer hang-ups and much less effort. Looks like it will work as advertised, though it will be a while before we have a sail to try it out on.

With the boom complete and the winches installed, I was able to do a test fit-up of all the rigging. Looks like all the leads are pretty good. I will add a couple of cleats once the mast is up.

While the rigging is all going well, the wiring has proved to be a challenge. I didn't really create big enough pathways for all the wire I need to pull for electronics, antennas, lights, etc. I've got quite a bit of the wiring pulled, but it hasn't been easy and I will probably end up running the radar cable external on the mast (or cut a new hole for it) to allow enough room in the existing wire chases for the final few electrical lines.

Mast Head fittings, Winch Pads, and Boom

Some work from last weekend...

Finished the mast head assembly. I made it out of 1/2" plate with a mount for the Sat Compass, Airmar weather station, and anchor light:

I also fabricated the parts for the boom, which is pretty straightforward. It is set up for heavy lifting. The hardware for the (loose footed) sail will be bolted on later:

Here are some nice all stainless trailer winches that I found online for about $50 each (!).

I will use these to handle the down rigger pole up-haul lines. They seem to be very well made:

Fabricating the winch pads took a lot of trial and error, but I think they will work fine. The bigger winch on the back of the mast will handle the boom lift. With a four to one tackle, this should be just about the right size for lifting big stuff. The smaller winch on the side of the mast is for the halyard.