Getting ready for the first season #3 - The mast

I needed to unstep the mast in preparation for transportation from bloomington to Chicago in the spring. An initial attempt was to use the gin pole at the Lake Monroe Sailing Association where the boat was being stored. This came with some poor results, the pole was plenty tall but the winch box was too small and the mast didn't come up far enough to clear the cabin top. The idea was scrapped and I would need to hire a crane on my next trip down to Bloomington.

Finally the day came and I met a small sign truck out at the sailing association to pull the mast. The work took all of 30 minutes from setup to completion and I was very happy to finally have the mast down. Unfortunately I did discover my first structural issue. The mast foot was completely rotten out after years of sitting water. The design is one of the flaws of these boats. In this area the bilge is nearly flat which makes installation of a wood block rather easy. Unfortunately, the block serves as a dam for any water forward of the mast, additionally water running down the mast will collect on this block causing quite a bit of rotting. In my case the foot was nothing but pulp. I got the photo below from a member of the Tartan 27 yahoo group from when he rebuilt his whole interior.

In my case I elected to use a few pieces of trex from the local hardware store. The trex built up nicely to the right height and has two advantages I like. 1) being plastic I don't need to worry about rot! 2) the trex is largely hollow which provides a path for water trapped forward of the mast to drain back to the main blige. I've heard about other owners building up epoxy or just making a replacement with a piece of teak. Both I'm sure are successful however I wanted to try something new and potentially innovative.