Heidi Maitland, Victorious 37VT26
heidimait@yahoo.com
Our mast was to be repaired for a "spot of rot at the base" by the former owner before we bought the boat in May 2015. The former owner had it unstepped and appeared to have done the work so we restepped it and reattached the shrouds. The shrouds were a little loose and could not be tightened any more with the turnbuckles, so we added a strap between the shrouds under the spreaders to tighten them. This arrangement worked throughout the summer. In August when we were working on the decks, on the top of the main salon, Ken noticed the rot in the bottom of the mast had actually crumpled the mast base. We babied the mast through to the Fall and then unstepped it again. There are two pictures (above) of the old mast, one before Ken took off the stainless fitting and one after, showing the extensive rot where the wires come out at the bottom. There was also rot at the top of the mast.
Ken talked with a friend, a "collector" of used boat parts, and found he had a solid spruce boom from an older boat. The diameter was very close to what we needed and the length was more than what we needed. The boom had a track that he removed and then filled the holes and a couple of cracks (routed out each crack and epoxied 3/4" spruce stock in the space). Ken cut the mast to length, and used a caliper and chisel to shape the bottom and top ends so the stainless fittings could be reused. He added 4" fiberglass tape to build the mast up at the spreaders to make the correct diameter. We have yet to fit the lights to the top, and may need to get new lights, as the old ones were temperamental. Ken plans to run the wiring through a vinyl cord cover that runs the length of the mast. The two pictures of the work are of the spruce ex-boom with the track removed, and the "new mast" top after being chiseled to the correct shape for the stainless fitting. The spreader fitting can be seen in the bottom most picture.
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