I recently discovered that the floor board surrounding my mast on my 36’ was completely soaked from the bottom up. Given that there is no evidence of water from the mast/deck “joint” area I am guessing that over the winter water somehow made it’s way into the inside of the mast and eventually traveled down and ultimately winding up at the bottom of the floor board.
Anyone else have any other ideas as to the cause?
Any suggestions for preventing in the future?
Anyone know of someone who can fashion a replacement floorboard in the nj area?
The masts on every Freedom that I know of are notorious for leaking. I regularly see water dripping along the mast and collecting at the base of it. There are 2 things that I’d recommend:
Clear the weep hole at the base of the mast. This will allow any water to drain to the bilge. I had to enlarge mine as carbon fiber dust from the mast would clog it.
Make a collar for you mast. The collar is made out of Sunbrella. There’s a ring of weather stripping at the top that the hose clamp tightens down on and we now have the top sealed even more with rigging tape. Here are a set of links to my web site that kind of show the collar that we’ve made. The main subject of the photos wasn’t the mast collar, so they don’t show the detail very well.
My F-36 has same problem and I don’t know of any other ways to fix the cause.
Any competent carpenter should be able to fashion a replacement. Finding a small piece of teak & Holly veneer plywood will be tough. A full sheet will be expensive.
Once you have a new one made take care to seal the edges and bottom with epoxy. Also, when storing for the winter take up the floorboard so that it does not get soaked.
A good collar around the mast will go a long way toward eliminating most of the water. Sealing the sole with epoxy will make a differance. When we bought our F36/38 years ago the boards around the mast already had some rot. Had new boards made here in Annapolis, but did have to buy a 4’x8’ sheet of teak and holly plywood. Sealed all of the sole with expoxy and made a collar and haven’t had any problems since.
In stead of a mast collar of fabric, you could also use Spartite or similar unbranded liquid two part poly urethane resins. Here’s my solution to a watertight seal at the deck:
Perhaps that is because Spartite is a bit softer (Durometer Shore 50-60A) than the PU I used (Durometer Shore 90A) and gets compressed by the sideways forces on the mast and gets torn away from the deck edge on the opposite side.
I also made the mast wedges of the same durometer PU rubber, to prevent movement of the mast:
We had problems with water at the foot of the mizzen in our F35 (UK, = F33 US), over winter. The top of the mast had been sealed with foam, so it wasn’t rain. Eventually found it was condensation, solved by putting a foam lined vinyl wrap around the mast in the saloon. The mast got very cold in the winter winds here!
Just an idea,
single ply rubber roofing is easy to cut, easy to shape, is virtually welded with contact cement, or even better single ply roofing cement, stainless hose clamps on the mast and on the mast collar . I bet it won’t leak and should cost about $10
