Pearson 365 Mast Step

[texasliam]

considering a pearson 365. The mast is stepped on an iron plate and the aluminum mast has corroded as seen here

Flickr: texasliam's Photostream

Looks like JB weld was applied and is now falling off.
Browsing the web I found:

- get a but load of fiberglass and tab it in to death.

-cut the floor and make a fiberglass mast step.

-cut the mast, send it the reminant and get a new aluminum step, the step costs $500. I can get the rigging tuned for free, what's it going to cost me to lift the mast then put it back at a later date when the step comes in?

Liam

[Stillraining]

Should be about 350 round trip for the yards crane... Can you do your own rigging?.. That will save you about 500 if you can.

You could clean up the Iron plate and make yourself a new shoe out of HDPE like I did...a 1/8" pad of it will isolate your mast from it and will save yourself another 400.

[texasliam]

Looks like you did the exact job I'm thinking about. Where did you get the aluminum riser? I'm betting the the riser would corrode in time. Galvanic reaction with the iron plate. What do you think about adding a zink to the riser? Any other pictures or info you have would be great. I'll pm you my adddress.
Thanks.
Liam

[DeepFrz]

I've heard of people who had a mast step made that compensated for the amount of mast that was trimmed. If you do that the mast head to deck distance will remain the same so it wont need to be re-rigged.

[Patrick_DeepPlaya]

I have a Pearson 424 and the also used iron mast steps and aluminum masts. I cut 2" off my mast and am putting a new mast step on a 2" block of Ultra High Molecular Weight (UHMW), basically crazy dense plastic. Wherever you are having your new mast step made can probably supply you with a block the same shape as the mast step.

[Patrick_DeepPlaya]

You can see pics of the old stuff here: Flickr: deepplaya's stuff tagged with maststep

I've not restepped the mast yet, but when I do you'll see lots of pics.

[skipmac]

Seems to be a common problem with Pearsons. I have to cut about 2" off the base of the mast in my Pearson 422. The yard where I just hauled there were two 424's and an old 41' that all had the same problem.

Rigrite in RI has mast steps but they wanted about $500 for an Al step for my boat. That did include 2" riser to account for the lost length. Now I know that this is marine alloy but $500 seems like a lot for basically a 12" X 18" Al rectangle. Think I'll look into the superdensity plastic. Patrick, where did you get yours?

[Patrick_DeepPlaya]

I had "The Yard" fabricate the maststep and supply the block. You might try

Online Metals which now carries plastics as well


-p

[Mango Bob]

I had a P-365 for ten years and the main mast was trimmed with an aluminum "shoe" set between the mast and keel. It was about 2-3 inches high and held up very well, great fix for a common problem. I like the idea of a non metallic compound for the shoe like UHMW or any other load bearing non conductive material although I suppose aluminum with a rubber gasket and some vinyl bushings around the bolts would work just as well.

[Stillraining]

Originally Posted by texasliam

Looks like you did the exact job I'm thinking about. Where did you get the aluminum riser? I'm betting the the riser would corrode in time. Galvanic reaction with the iron plate. What do you think about adding a zink to the riser? Any other pictures or info you have would be great. I'll pm you my adddress.
Thanks.
Liam

Liam:

I answered your Pm before I read your post here....So sorry for not understanding your question.

1) I did not use Aluminum...I used SS
2) I Isolated my Aluminum mast form the SS base plate with 1/8" of UHMW ( I referred to it as HDPE but that's Excavator pipe talk )
3) No galvanic corrosion! as there is no metal to metal contact....even my pin SS mast to shoe anchor pin is isolated with UHMW bushings.
4) As far as building up your mast step the 2" you need to replace cutting off your mast ...you could do something out of fiberglass like this pictured below.... My mast cant sit in bilge water as it is elevated above it on a solid fiberglass platform built up off the keel trunk....my new mast base plate ( Shoe) fits right on top of this base and is through bolted onto it.