Triaxial Force Grid question [re mast step]

[N.A.]

Does anyone know if the mast extends below the floorboards, roughly?

In my (1998, Pacific-Seacraft-built) E34 there is something down there reaching toward the keel, but a rigger today told me it is not the mast tube but some part of the support system -- he said the mast stops at the aluminum plate in the picture below.

I ask because there's often water in there, and I am trying to figure out if that water could corrode the bottom of my aluminum mast, or if the mast itself is raised above the bottom of the bilge/top of the keel. Not easy to see down in there, but I've felt around before and thought the mast reached down another 6" or more... but on the other hand, I'm not a rigger and was just assuming it went all the way down.

 

[Drewm3i]

Your rigger is right--the mast sits on an aluminum plate with a small lip. It is held down in compression along the three rib structures that run across, perpendicular to the hull.

 

[Loren Beach]

Our Kenyon spar is seated on an aluminum Kenyon cast base piece. That base is lagged down into a heavy frp beam just beneath the sole pieces, extending out to and under the settees. Adding some historic tradition to the engineering, I placed a couple of dollar coins inside (glued down so as not to shift and block the rain water drain hole), just before reinstalling the rig in 2021.
"So far, so good"

 

[Christian Williams]

Under the mast step is the bilge, with limber holes to allow rainwater to reach the after compartments, where the bilge pump pickup probably is.

Rainwater inside the mast--all masts admit rain, through the necessary holes required by fittings--drips over the aluminum step from an opening near the base. No way to prevent it. (If the mast base drain clogs, which is common because it is not very obvious, then the mast can hold a column of built-up rainwater for years . In my case several gallons, a pent up urination accompanied, as you might expect, by a long sigh of relief from the yacht.

If rainwater pours out onto the teak and holly sole, members have built dams or provided an opening or installed some sort of hose to save the sole from water damage.

 

[N.A.]

Many thanks!

I had been worrying about corrosion at the base of the bast, but it must be up out of the bilge water.

And now I know what those holes between bilge areas are called

 

[N.A.]

For anyone looking at this in the future:

My mast step (E34 with the "triaxial force grid") turns out to be just below the cabin sole [this is not obvious looking at it; one can't see well into the space]. The rigger showed me when he had the mast out -- it sits in the metal bracket immediately below the sole, with a small lip to hold it there.

So if you wave water in the bilge, unless it's quite high it will never be in contact with the base of the mast, and corrosion (via that route) should not be an issue.

This is notably different than what I saw once in an old Contessa 32, where the base of the mast was down where it would be in the bilge water, and was in fact corroded.