Removing cable from inside mast

[Trop Cher]

I'm currently rewiring my boat and it's now the turn of the mast. The electrical cables pull through easily enough but the ariel cable won't budge. I could leave it in but would prefer to remove it. Any ideas welcome...
Simon

 

[Loginname]

No help, but if it's jammed by something in the mast you have little choice but to sort it out. It may only fail at some point in the future.

Is the mast up or down? I had a cable that would come out from one end, but wouldn't budge the other way.

Lubrication can help. Soap can work wonders(I've also found a little silicon(e?) grease helpful) , but you need to get it at the problem area and if you don't know what's causing the problem.........

It may have got a kink in it and, if you're lucky, you may be able to twist the cable to remove the kink.

Not much help really...

 

[Talbot]

I had some trouble with my aerial cable when I came to change it. I removed the head and bottom castings from the mast (drilled out the rivets) and this revealed the problem. After that it was simple.

 

[pmyatt]

A similar situation to us - have finished rewiring and am now dealing with the mast. I assume the mast is still up - which is probably the root of the problem. We found that cables got caught on rivet ends inside the mast so it was necessary to remove the mast and put it on trestles so that it could be rotated and the cable kink(?) would drop off the rivet. We also found that cables would jam where they had to pass a halyard where it exited the mast so we also kept tension on the free end of the cable, with a mousing line, as it was pulled through - this helped as it kept the cable straight and in tension. /forums/images/graemlins/ooo.gif