Ahoy fellow Pearson sailors. We have been experiencing water leaking from the coach roof and out the scupper, out of a light fixture which Ralph had installed over the salon table, out the bottom edge of the hatch frame, and finally discovered water running down the main mast. He just removed a worn out Sunbrella mast boot cover and discovered that there are wedges driven in to I guess level and seal the space between the sections. Sorry I can't think of all the names of the boat parts but I know you guys can forgive. What would be some solutions? ???
The wedges are there to help support the mast where it passes through the deck. They also provide chafe protection for the deck and mast. We looked into replacement mast boots and thought waterboot.com was a good option. We ended up not replacing ours since we didn't pull the mast after all and it wasn't leaking, so I can't say anything about how the waterboot actually works in practice.
Mastboot - great product! Great people to deal with. I refer my customers to them all of the time. They only sell direct.
I have used them for 7 years with no issues and remove the stick every year. They have the P365 pattern on file.
I can't imagine installing mast wedges on a 365. The spar is a tree stump and not likely to pump. Not a lot of room for wedges either.
Another great option is Spartite. Spartite both seals and holds the mast in place. It is also reusable. Check them out at spartite.com.
Dale
I pull my mast every year, and use a boot kit from West Marine. I have reused the same boot 4 seasons now, and it still looks good. We cover it with a piece of material, left over from the sail covers, just for looks. I discovered about a square foot of rotten deck core aft of the mast, that needed repairing.
Its will take a lot of work and time to re-bed all the hatches, port lights and deck hardware. The most immediate solution would be bungee cords and a boom tent. Funny how water flowing around inside the head liner will find any available screw hole from which to drip. I calk any screw that pierces the headliner for this reason.
I suspect the mast boot leak to be a secondary problem. Water dripping down the mast usually winds up in the bilge. But a leak around the mast boot can over many years result in a much more serious deck house structural issues that will require some amount of re-coring. The deckhouse supports the mast and keeps it from bending when the boat heels, hence the wedges. The tension rode between the deckhouse and the mast step on the keel is critical element in this structure.
My Pearson is a 1976 that had water coming in everywhere when I got it 5 years ago. My deckhouse core was very rotted and collapsed around the mast from water leaks and did require extensive surgery. I repaired that, replaced the mast step and poured Spartite around the mast hole. No more leaks.
Pete, Hull#6
Thank you all for your patience and understanding. As it turns out I have mischaracterized the situation. There are no wedges under the mast collar. What he was calling a wedge is actually a white rubber collar that surrounds the mast and drives down between the mast and the mast collar. I think I probably need to caulk that to keep it in place and then cover with a rubber boot.
I have the exact same set up on my boat. I bought some mast boot tape from Defender. It's a roll about 6" wide and 36" in length. sticks to itself. You just start at the bottom and wrap upwards around the mast. Makes a great watertight seal, except at the mast track, where I pump in a blob of silicone. Then wrap it with a sunbrella boot and you are done. Will last for years. Cheers.
Thanks all, esp Randy. Tried and failed to post pic.