Mast question

[BAJ]

A few years back, we determined that the boat I had found at a thrift store was a Daysailer 1, although a refurbishment or three has turned it into some sort of hybrid.

Assuming it is exactly that: what is supposed to be at the bottom of the mast? There is a slot in the floor, and in the bottom of my mast is a piece of wood that has been whittled so that it will fit in the slot. But it is on its last legs, so I ordered the Mast Step Casting from DR Marine. It arrived today, and while it looks like the mast will sit on it... then what? The bottom is flat, so there's nothing that will fit in a slot. There are also no holes, so it can't be screwed to anything, and in my boat there is nothing to screw it to anyway.

Pictures are coming, but I'm hoping someone can answer the question (or at least figure out what I'm trying to say!) before I'm able to post the pics.

Thanks!

(PS: on another forum someone said "If you have wood floors and coamings, with an open cuddy cabin, it is probably a Day Sailer 1. The Day Sailer II has a double hull with fiberglass floor in the cockpit and hatch opening for the cuddy cabin." My boat has fiberglass floors, NO coamings, and an open cuddy cabin.)

[GreenLake]

The wooden floors are removable, so when you write fiberglass floor, do you mean there is a space between the floor and the bottom of the hull, or do you simply refer to the inside of a (single) hull?

When you write "no coamings" do you mean the side-deck continues uninterrupted into the seat moldings, or did someone take the wooden coamings off? (In the latter case, you need to replace them with something, they are a structural component of the boat).

Faced with something that works, like the wooden "adapter" you describe, I would probably have recreated that solution.

Lacking pictures, I can't give you any more specific suggestions.

[BAJ]

Faced with something that works, like the wooden "adapter" you describe, I would probably have recreated that solution.
.

When push comes to shove, I probably will try my hand at whittling, whether I want to or not. But I'll still wonder: if I'm the only person whittling, what original part am I re-creating? And why don't other people seem to need it?

[GreenLake]

In my boat, a '63 DS I, there's a round hole in the mast foot. There's a bronze block that fits into the slot on the keelson which has a threaded bronze rod sticking out, with a bronze nut on it.

You stick the mast foot over the rod and then raise the nut to put tension on the stays. It's called a mast jack.

If your stays have turnbuckles, then the previous owner converted the setup to no longer need the mast jack. Hence the "adapter".

That, in the absence of more detail, would be my guess.

If you don't like whittling, you could try to create something from fiberglass that you could bolt to the new mast foot cap (needs a very secure connection). Or maybe you could find some hard plastic that you could saw and sand to shape.

The weak point of that improvised adapter seems to have been the choice of material.

[Saltatrix]

In my DS I, the mast sits directly on the mast step with nothing else holding it on. The tension from the stays is enough to keep it from moving at all.

That should be all you need.

[GreenLake]

How to you get the tension? I assume you have turnbuckles?

[Saltatrix]

Yep, turnbuckles.

I crank them till they twang like a guitar string.

[GreenLake]

Right. You still want to somehow secure your mast foot against sideways movement. Whether that's done by having your mast step form a depression or by having a central pin makes no difference. But without anything, there's a risk that by slamming into a wave or something, the mast foot could move, even if you have good tension.

What you don't need is anything to hold the mast "down".

[K.C. Walker]

I actually created a slot for my mast step to sit in. This is particularly useful if you have a one-piece mast. The reason for the slot is to be able to adjust your mast prebend. The mast base casting can be drilled easily and you install something rectangular to fit in the slot, it could be wood or I used high density polyethylene. Somebody's going to have to make the part though. Once you have the part set up you use chocks in front or behind the mast base to position it.