Mast wiring.

[Carmel2]

We are in a particularly rolly anchorage and within the mast the wiring for the trilight, vhf, anchor light, deck light etc all hangs down, clattering from side to side, making a din that is about to send us both insane! Should these be running through a conduit to stop this? What's in your mast? Any tips on stopping it? Short of chopping the fecking thing down...

 

[David2452]

We are in a particularly rolly anchorage and within the mast the wiring for the trilight, vhf, anchor light, deck light etc all hangs down, clattering from side to side, making a din that is about to send us both insane! Should these be running through a conduit to stop this? What's in your mast? Any tips on stopping it? Short of chopping the fecking thing down...

Bundle them in three tiewraps with the tails sticking out in a triangular formation at 1.5m intervals. that will shut it up.

 

[Boathook]

It also makes a noise in conduit though possibly not as bad.

 

[Avocet]

The cable tie trick worked a treat for me. DON'T do what I first did and squirt some builder's expanding foam into the mast in 2 or 3 places! Some git snapped the VHF antenna off when it was on trestles in the yard one day. Took me 3 days to "dig" the foam out to run a new cable!

 

[wklein]

Shouldn't be any noise in a properly set up conduit. Best way is to take the mast down put a plastic tube on the outside of the mast where you want it drill through tube and mast two holes about an inch apart every meter or so. Turn the tube over and push up the mast. Hook the tube with a piece of wire and rivet the other hole. Then rivet the first one progressing up. Then mouse the cables through it.

Alternatively you could tape all the cables to a piece of wire or dyneema and secure above and below the exits. This can be done rig up.

It is however very unlikely that the mast was built without a conduit. It will either have a plastic tube or if it is a sparlight / proctor mast foam inside, so cables are between mast wall and foam. What's probably the case is someone has made a hash of pulling in cables through the conduit and given up. With a bit of dedication you should be able to reinstate it. Pictures would help with a plan.

 

[William_H]

All of course assuming that it is the electrical wiring and not 7X19 wire halyards banging around inside the mast. In which case tightening the halyards may help or loosening them.
good luck olewill

 

[vyv_cox]

Depends on the particular mast section but there is normally a conduit or two in the extrusion. I would have thought that yours had some, being quite new - ours is 30 years old and has one each side of the sail slot. However, we also get some rattling noises when we are rolling, probably the halyards or mayb the steaming light, whose cable is not in a conduit.

 

[Carmel2]

Hi, thanks for all the input. It's not the halyards, it's the wires. You can see them through one of the non-used slots rolling back and forth, so it looks like it's mast down time to fix it.

 

[richardm47]

If you use the cable-tie trick, make sure you use industrial size cable ties. If you use lightweight ones, you may find yourself doing the job again next year ..... Just done it, so ask if you have any more questions.

 

[Carmel2]

If you use the cable-tie trick, make sure you use industrial size cable ties. If you use lightweight ones, you may find yourself doing the job again next year ..... Just done it, so ask if you have any more questions.

Will do thanks!