Funduit (large pics)

[beej67]

Alrighty. I have to share this with somebody.

My wife and I own an old Pearson 323. We love it, it's built like a tank, sails better than a Benehuntalina (I love that word, read it on sailnet for the first time a day or two ago) and has lots of stowage room. Well a while back, the bonding wire to our mast step broke, and the step turned to corroded goo before we realized it. (this is a keel stepped mast) Got our boatyard to custom fab a replacement out of 316 stainless that's truly ridiculous in scope and also addressed the issue of mast corrosion, I can talk about that later if someone's interested, but what I wanted to post was our mast rewiring.

We figured with the mast out, might as well do some work on it, and one thing that needed replacement was the wiring. Previously there was no conduit for the anchor light and steaming light, we had no spreader lights. Either the builder or previous owner had simply hung the wires from the masthead, and encased the dangling wires in foam pipe insulation like plumbers use, which would swing back and forth at anchor and whack the insides of the aluminum spar (kathunk, kathunk, kathunk) all night. Well that was annoying, but not alarming, until the breaker for the anchor light started tripping, ostensibly because the spreader bolts had worn through the pipe foam and the wire's insulation. Whole thing's gotta come out, and while we're at it, might as well hang some spreader lights, and while we're at that, might as well try and get some kind of conduit up the mast to keep the same problems from happening in the future.

So we bust out the old Calder everything-in-the-world-about-boat-repair book, and he says to get some pvc pipe conduit, run a bead of adhesive down one side, lay it inside the mast, then spin it 180 degrees so the adhesive sticks. We were pretty skeptical about that, for a couple reasons. One, we weren't so sure we'd get it right and didn't want a bunch of additional crap stuck to the inside of our spar if we goofed it up. Two, more importantly, we were worried the conduit might come unglued in the future, and produce even more racket. We preferred a simpler, cheaper, quieter solution that was more easily reversed. And my wife comes up with the idea of Funduit.

We go to the dollar store and buy a whole box of those "Fun Noodle" things - you know, the colored kids float toys for the pool with the hole down the middle. Got the whole box for maybe twenty bucks. Well those things are made out of closed cell urethane foam - same as the "tundra" version of plumber's pipe insulation - but they're two or three times as thick, and they're pretty darn resistant to environmental degradation. We take them back to the boatyard, and string all our wires through them, using the central hole as the conduit, like a giant foam snake. Then put a wrap of duct tape at each of the joints between the Fun Noodle sections to hold it all together. Like this:



We made two. A red one to go the whole length of the mast and carry the anchor light wiring and a bundle wire for any instrumentation we want to add in the future (we're not big on instrumentation, honestly) and a blue one to go to the spreaders for our steaming light and our new spreader lights. (we used forklift headlights for the spreader lights, actually, with hose clamps, but held them off the aluminum spreaders with plastic tube to prevent corrosion at the metal interface) Then we just shoved the two Funduits into the mast. Like this:



When we stepped the mast again, the Funduits settled a little, but they're so big they don't swing. And the added bonus is they're actually sound absorbent, so when a halyard goes banging against the mast at night, they deaden the sound some for folks below decks.

So there you have it. Funduit. Clearly not a super technical solution for modern boats, with their internally extruded conduits and in-mast furling and crap, but a neat cheap solution for older boats, in my opinion.

[erps]

We did the same thing on one of our boats with water pipe insulation. I was able to stuff it up the mast through an inspection plate at the bottom while the mast was still up.

[sailingdog]

The only problem I see with using pool noodles is that running future wiring is a major PITA. A PVC conduit would have the room to run additional wiring in the future without much trouble. Also, the two foam noodles are not really a good idea if you have internal halyards, as they take up way too much space.

[beej67]

We did the same thing on one of our boats with water pipe insulation. I was able to stuff it up the mast through an inspection plate at the bottom while the mast was still up.

That's essentially what was done on our boat before, but as I mentioned above it swung back and forth, banged against the sides, and eventually wore holes in the insulation. You can see the old foam and wiring in the bottom right corner of the first photo above - that's the stuff we pulled out. Notice how it's all twisted at the bottom end, because the foam sagged over time, which led to the thwacking.

Originally Posted by sailingdog

The only problem I see with using pool noodles is that running future wiring is a major PITA. A PVC conduit would have the room to run additional wiring in the future without much trouble. Also, the two foam noodles are not really a good idea if you have internal halyards, as they take up way too much space.

If you'll notice, we've got 6 strands in the blue noodle and still plenty of room to spare. Plus, there's nothing left to run, really. We ran a dead wire for instruments in case we ever wanted to install some (which we don't) and it's not like we give a rats rear about TV or anything.

Yup, internal halyards, in mast furling, all that stuff pretty much nukes it, which is why I mentioned it's a worthless idea for most newer boats.

[Plumper]

What a great idea. A secondary benefit is they displace water so if you ever find your self mast down there is less room in there for water.

[beej67]

I hadn't even thought of that. That's probably not hugely significant, but I suppose with enough lever arm .. hrmm .. I wonder what the math on that looks like..

[merlin2375]

Nice solution! Hopefully the duct tape will stand the test of time but I guess it doesn't matter that much if it falls off since there's nowhere for the funduit pieces to go

[AjariBonten]

Apart from the potential for halyard space issues; it seems to be a very elegant solution to a couple of problems. Hats off!

I've been thinking about a Pearson, possibly a 323, as well. How long have you had it? Apparently you are happy with it. How about living aboard for a couple?

Fred

[camaraderie]

Good post and pix Beej...great improvisation!

[beej67]

Ajari,

Don't know that I'd want to live aboard it, but it's very comfortable for a week or two cruise, and we'll head a hundred miles offshore with it without batting an eyelash. I'd probably want more space in a liveaboard, because we keep a huge reserve of tools, spare tools, spare parts, etc, on our boat. The major flaw with it as a liveaboard is it doesn't have an aft berth.

My dad bought the boat in the mid 90s in Tampa, sailed it up to Apalach and I crewed for him until he retired and moved to the Chesapeake around 2001, then I bought the boat off him. He's got an old Soverel MORC boat made in the 60s now, somewhere around 28 feet.

The 323 is single-hand-able in every way except for the lack of an anchor windlass, but the hardware (winches/etc) on it is beefy, so it's got the feel of a larger boat. Hull's got a lot of rocker to it, so you go over the waves instead of through them like modern, flatter bottomed boats. I consider it extremely sea worthy. The only major flaws I've heard with its seaworthyness by other critics is it's only got 2 scupper drains in the cockpit, so it might take a while for the cockpit to drain if you take a big wave in a following sea, and the fact that the companionway is off-center so you might conceivably take more water in a knockdown from a particular side. Those two complaints are really pretty meaningless to me, though. If I ever do any serious 3 week passage-making, I'm buying a bigger boat anyway, hehe.

When my wife and I have fantasized about living aboard and/or doing some major ocean sailing, we've discussed the 424 Ketch and the 422 Center Cockpit Pearsons. Similar era and outfitting to ours, just bigger. I saw a 422 at anchor last weekend, it was really pretty.

Oh, and there's the Pearson Alden Countess. I've never seen one of those in person, but they look really neat on Yachtworld, especially in terms of foul weather sailing, internal layout, live-aboard room, etc. Only drawback is the shorter LWL compared to LOA, but I've always thought LWL was over rated anyway.