Posted by geraldfreshwater (freshwater@…>)
I have a CF mast (main) and an aluminium one. The latter had sponges as used by
Michel
Capel, and was quiet, but the former slapped about as there was no padding. I
have put
foam tube around these wires (two, plus pilot line) and also cable ties, between
each foam
section (not including pilot line). Results to follow when the mast goes up next
week. An
extra wire can be pulled through, but removing one old one will have to wait
until the
mast is unstepped again. I don’t think this will be a problem.
The aluminium mizzen is a whole different ball game; a sleeve about one third of
the way
up has been fastened with unnecessarily long bolts, which seriously hampered
removal of
the wires, and prevented removal of the sponges, since the line holding them got
caught
up and broke when I tried to extract it. Since new wires had to be threaded in
from the
top, and the hole was small, I used just cable ties in the top half, then pushed
foam tube
up from the bottom. Two wasted days struggling with this! Results, if any, also
to follow.
After that struggle, I shall be happy if the wires just manage to conduct
electricity, let
alone beat an exotic rhythm as the boats moves at anchor.
I think Michel’s sponges are the best solution, but there can be a down-side to
their use.
Gerald Freshwater
Castaway
Lerwick Boating Club
— In FreedomOwnersGroup@yahoogroups.com, “michel.capel” <michel.capel@…>
wrote:
On my F33/35 ck I had aluminum masts, imagine the clank-clank when a
boat passed us at night at anchor. I came up with this solution: I
bought 15 large car wash sponges and tied these to a thin line,
every 6’ to 8’one sponge. The thin line was raised with the pilot
line. You can only use this when you have external halyards.
On the F44 I have now, I have internal halyards so I put foam
insulation tube around the wire package when replacing the wires. It
does not work as well as the sponges and it is quite a job to push
16 sections of foam tube over a couple of wires.
I doubt that the often mentioned star pattern of tiewraps would work
with the heavy wire loom (2 or 3 fat wires in each mast, plus a
pilot line)in my masts. And what will you do if you have to replace
just one wire after you have put tie wraps around the loom?
— In FreedomOwnersGroup@yahoogroups.com, Barry Stellrecht
<yak@> wrote:
Hello freedom owners,
I’ve got an F33CK, and both my masts have cables inside, and when
we were at anchor, the cables slapping around inside the masts were
pretty annoying. I’m pretty sure this problem has come up in the
group before, but I wanted to ask what worked and what didn’t.
Currently I have new enough wires to make it hard to justify
replacement of them–that would be a lightning conductor,
steaming/anchor light, and wind instrument in the main, and VHF and
lightning in the Mizzen. It looks like they are inside the new
black foam plumbing insulation, as I believe Freedom built them, but
this isn’t doing it for me.
All my halyards are external, so I don’t need to worry about them
getting in an argument with the wires.
Thanks for any thoughts, and especially tested ideas that work.
Barry