Is your bulkhead tabbed?

[Mary Mac]

My bulkhead is not tabbed to the ceiling.. should it be? 1978 34-III

IMG_4032.JPG (4.04 MiB) Viewed 6280 times

[conifer]

Mary, 1976 Cal 2-34. Yes, fore and aft. It only looks like 2 plies of about 4 oz. which is pretty lightweight. I used same when replacing center portion of main bulkhead. You can see the vertical seam in the third picture.

[conifer]

I say yes as in mine is tabbed to the ceiling. Presumably that would be the right thing to do. Wonder if any Cal 34 mark 3 owners out there have the same as you.

-Al

[Mary Mac]

Conifer, how did you seal the hole where the wires come through the deck?

[conifer]

Mary, I did that from topsides with the mast down and access to the mast step. Previous owner had siliconed around the bottom of the mast step (on the outside where the mast meets the step) so any water that entered the mast could only exit through the wiring hole. I caulked in a tube around the wiring hole and fed everything through that. It’s about 2” high so in theory I could get 2” of water stuck in the bottom of the mast before any entry into the boat, however it drains well now.

I have an access port in the bottom of the mast, so it could have been possible to do all that with the mast up but certainly more difficult. I think ensuring the mast step drains well is probably the first step. You can see there is no sealant where my mast meets the step (I do have plenty of butyl oozing from under the step that I need to clean up).


Al

[conifer]

While I have that picture up, I should note that I used trailer wiring connectors for all of the mast lights. Saw this on a friend’s boat and seemed like the way to go to make a mast installing simple. They are waterproof, inexpensive, and easy to work with. I’m only using about 2 feet of the trailer wire on either side and then I go back to my tinned marine wire.

[Mary Mac]

Thank you for the helpful info and photos! There aren't any places I can haul and remove the mast that will also allow DIY right now, so I'm trying to figure the best way to seal it from below.

[blavis]

For the person that placed a stainless cover over the access hole. Bad idea. The stainless <> aluminum electrolysis will eat away at your mast. Replace it with a aluminum cover plate and do not use stainless bolts to secure it. A smear of silicone would work, and if needed could be pried off..

[thebastidge]

Mary, next time I'm down at the boatyard I will check my bulkhead since we have the same boat.

The base of the forward berth is tabbed to the hull. Unfortunately, the forward hatch leaked while the boat was laid up before I got her. This caused the plywood of the berth to de-lam a bit towards the middle. It's not totally rotted, but not in original condition. Difficult to replace it because of the glassing-in at the outside edges. I'm thinking about laying a new piece over it (there are hatches cut into if to access to the fresh water tank beneath the berth, need to cut out for those too) since there does not seem to be progressive rot, just some delamination right at the center of the aft edge.

I'm going to be taking out the original mast step, and replacing it completely, so this example is a cautionary tale about ensuring that is done right. Since it's a completely different style of mast and step, I'm adding a stainless steel organizer (from Rig Rite: https://www.rigrite.com/Spars/SparParts ... Plates.php) for blocks located at the mast base. This will require galvanic isolation from the aluminum mast step casting (which I recently had blasted and re-anodized with a clear coat). I'm wondering what other folks use for this, since a couple people I've mentioned this to have sneered at the idea of a piece of starboard (HDPE).

My wiring will consist of a marine grade ethernet cable for the radar, power cable for same, NMEA 2000 cable for the wind sensor at the mast head, and power for spreader and mast head lights. I have not specifically figured out what the gland for these all to pass through should look like. I'm hesitant to simply glob a bunch of 3M adhesive into the gap around the wires and hope for the best, lol. Especially considering the NMEA and Ethernet cable.

[thebastidge]

I have an access port in the bottom of the mast, so it could have been possible to do all that with the mast up but certainly more difficult. I think ensuring the mast step drains well is probably the first step. You can see there is no sealant where my mast meets the step (I do have plenty of butyl oozing from under the step that I need to clean up).


Al

Al,

Is there guidance on how to cut an access port like that, in terms of distance from the base, percentage of mast section allowable, square, round, or oval? I would expect to go pretty conservative on anything that could compromise mast integrity, but I wondered about the connections, leaving enough slack to connect/disconnect with the mast lifted on a crane, etc. Seems like having enough slack for connectors to be accessed through a port like that would be a good idea, but I am open to learning about cautionary tales about access ports as well.

My mast will be a complete replacement, cut down from a rig removed from a keel-stepped J/35. So I will be removing several feet of length from the bottom and dressing the edges, moving the gooseneck a bit etc. I'll have to make provision for drainage, which is something I hadn't considered before this thread (I'm doing most of the work myself.)