how to silence noisy cables in my mast

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superboots

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My 15m mast has no conduit for cables and I have recently upgraded the cables but a side effect has been an increase in noise from the cables banging against the mast in a swell. Has anyone manged to control this without taking the mast down and fixing an internal conduit?
 
Hi
I fed the cables up my mast with a 25cm cable tie every 20cm. But dont trim the tail of the tie, the effect of all the ties up the mask pointing in different angles immobilises the cable.
 
Is it possible to inject a small quantity of expanding foam into the mast at intervals along it's length if there are screws you can remove for the purpose of doing so ?
 
in a word Cable ties...

I've heard placing cable ties at regular intervals pointing 120 degrees away from each other.

Tis will provide some cushioning and allow halyards to run free, though will no doubt have some impact on wear/tear.
 
Ties work great as najs says, 3 every every 1 to 2 metres is fine. I would avoid using foam and the like - ask yourself the question 'how would I get it out if it all went wrong' (or how would I run up another cable)
 
this as in most other solutions would be a strip out first,but tthats not always a bad thing as wires up a mast that are clanging are probably wearing at the same time,so you can check all the wireing at the same time as stoping the noise,put all the cables inside some 22mm. pipe insulation it not only stops the clanging but usualy goes up the mast adding extra lenths required without to much bother.best of luck. Kieron
 
Did the cable tie solution last year and can confirm that they work very well. A cheap solution, but it helps to have two people one at either end of the mast.
 
cables are already in place so can't fit cable ties.My only idea is to close the cavity in the mast by blowing up a balloon inserted through a redundant hole for lightfitting and then placing foam from above on a long tube and protect halyards from foam by covering with a layer of clingfilm and poythene - but has anyone done this?
 
Dont do foam!

I saw one of our club members trying to fabricate a mast length drill to hack foam out when he had to replace/repair a wire. Its a fatal mistake, better to put up with the racket till you can drop the mast and pipe insulate or tiewrap it.
 
I've done the foam - DON'T MAKE THE SAME MISTAKE AS ME!!!! I was smart and considered the notion of how I'd change a wire if necessary and decided that as the mast was pretty old, I'd replace every wire and then put the foam in - I was pretty confident that the new wires would then outlive the mast...

What happened? That very winter, the mast was off the boat and on trestles next to it and some ^&*$!! must have driven past and snapped the VHF antenna!

It took me a WEEK to get the foam out!!! I had to make up a drill / auger thing like a set of drain rods until it was the full length of the mast and smash it out bit by bit. You'd be amazed how far a bit of foam expands! Heaven only knows what it did to the anodising on the inside of the mast!

It's probably the silliest thing I've ever done with a boat!

Could you run one extra cable (or even just a rope) inside the mast with the cable ties on it? They might keep all the other wires quiet.
 
"Could you run one extra cable (or even just a rope) inside the mast with the cable ties on it? They might keep all the other wires quiet."

Now that sounds like it could be worth a try?
 
doubt this would solve anything... the cable tie approach keeps each wire from teh mast wall, this approach would only seem to reduce the interaction of cales within the mast. I doubt thats the main cause of noise.
 
Might mitigate things though, as I imagine it would deny the other wires a clear run at the opposite side of the mast. Especially if there were four Our even 6 cable ties on the extra one (say) every couple of feet. I admit it's not a perfect solution, but it might be worth a try
 
Not my idea and I have not tried it, but someone on here suggested pulling a rope or cable up inside the mast with a sponge tied to it every few feet. It seemed to me that it would probably work.

Alan
 
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