Does anyone have a naked picture of a factory installed mast step. To clarify, without the mast installed. Im begin to wonder if, we as a group should start to attempt to acquire things like the plug for the mast step before it disappears. Then again maybe PTF has it.
Over the several decades of its operation, Sam L Morse Co used a few different masts and mast steps. Different mast steps for different masts, right?
Zygote BCC 116 was built with a Forespar mast.
I’ve attached pics of
(a) Zygote’s mast step after 15 years of cruising;
(b) the base section of Z’s Forespar mast; and
(c) Zygote’s mast step after cleanup and painting (
note the orange cable tie)
Thank you, did I miss what the orange cable is?
Roger D. Olson, as president of Sam L Morse Co,. had specified that the mast step be seated on a block of Delrin. Roger’s idea was to keep both the mast step and mast base dry.
If you look keenly at the image of Zygote’s cleaned and painted mast step, you’ll likely note that the central area of the mast step is raised into a dome, with a circular aperture penetrating the dome.
Look back of the image of Z’s mast step after 15 years of standing in salt spray, rain, dew, deck hosing, and sundry faecal offerings from birds, insects, and goodness knows what. You might make out that salt and lime deposits accumulated as detritus to fill the sub-dome space.
The orange coloured cable tie is there to remind Zygote’s crew to agitate that cable tie every now and again, to dislodge any dried deposit of salt, lime, and whatever, so future flows of condensed water, rainwater, and deck washing, flow through the circular aperture and flush the detritus away.
Brilliant! Thank you for sharing this. We need a book on these boats.
Mischief (067/1983) had the Forespar mast step mounted directly on the fiberglass covering the lead ballast - without the Delrin riser. The step and base of the mast extrusion had some corrosion damage. I cut 4" off the mast base to get back to clean uncompromised material and added the 4" Delrin riser block. When I shaped the Delrin, I ran a router down the centerline and across the top of the block to create large drainage channels under where the mast step would mount. Like in Bil’s picture, I cleaned up and primed/painted the original aluminum Forespar step. If I were doing it over again, I would probably manufacture a new step from 1/2" G10 or FRP sheet material. One base layer with 2 or 3 pieces epoxied on top shaped to slip into the mast section.
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