Mast Winch Pad Corrosion

HI ALL , I have been removing my mast hardware , preparing to mount them on a new mast that I am fabricating.

Upon removing the mast mounted bronze winches, (Murry winches from NZ) , I found aluminum corrosion under them.

Will try to attach a photo of the aluminum winch pad that Forespar had welded to the mast wall.

What I saw was evidence that water was trapped inside the winch base, which contributed to the corrosion of the aluminum winch pad.

My first thoughts were how to reduce this corrosion problem in the future.

We have already found out that entrapped stagnant salt water is a leading cause of corrosion.

My mind is telling me to provide a weep hole in the winch base, to let any entrapped water out.

Has anyone else encountered this problem and found a suitable remedy ?

Douglas , BCC Calliste 072

Douglas,
Can you rotate the Murray winch base so that it drains? If not, a hole or slot sounds like a very good idea. Shaula has 2 Barients and a self-tailing Anderson on the mast. I goop up any fasteners on the mast or boom with polysulfide to try and keep the salt water away from the dissimilar metals. The paint blisters at the storm trysail track rivits were a problem until I realized that the hole in the rivit was allowing saltwater to enter and attack from the inside! Filling the hole with polysulfide seems to have fixed problem.

Is your new mast anodized or painted? If painted, will it be that great yellow color? What caused you to replace the mast?
Dan BCC Shaula 059

I replaced the trysail track rivets with Monel rivets after completely sanding down and repainting the mast last year.

Hopefully that will not only be stronger, but also reduce the corrosion.

Mike - BCC Adventure 079

Hi Dan, very interesting that you observed outside corrosion being caused by salt water inside the mast.

I think I had a problem like that too.

Currently, I am trying to get a local anodizing shop to write me a price quote to anodize the new mast.

The Gold color anodizing is beyond my budget, drats !

Now, at the early stages of considering anodizing the mast as a DIY project, to save cash.

My first choice is to anodize, the second choice is to paint.

During the Asian Tsunami my mast was damaged, and repairs to a 20 year old mast, would have cost almost as much as just replacing the whole mast.

Will try to attach a photo of a damaged spreader base, but the photo doesn’t show all the damage.

Mike , how did you know to choose Monel rivits, to reduce corrosion ?