Thanks Ed. The story at 
http://www.cncphotoalbum.com/doityourself/maststep/maststep.htm is informative. 
Someone who owned the boat before me had already cut a rectangular hole in the 
cabin sole next to forward port dinette bench, and fashioned a thick wood block 
to fill the hole and span the two cross supports. They just didn't go so far as 
to rebuild the cross supports. The above story looks like a reasonable way to 
do it. 

So when your step failed, what happened? Did those timbers, and the floor pan, 
just break, causing your mast to drop 6-9"? 

Cheers, 
Randy 

----- Original Message -----

From: "Edward Levert via CnC-List" <[email protected]> 
To: "cnc-list" <[email protected]> 
Cc: "Edward Levert" <[email protected]> 
Sent: Monday, April 11, 2016 1:57:05 PM 
Subject: Re: Stus-List Timbers Beneath Mast Step 

Randy: 

Check the "Do it yourself" section of the Photo Album for a description and a 
photograph of the repair. My C&C 30 Mk 1, Hull 19(?) had the step fail on the 
1st sail. I was in Mobile Bay at the time of failure and had the step rebuilt 
by a professional who was the Boatwright for the US Olympic teams in China and 
England. The rebuilt the step is similar to the description in the Photo Album, 
differing by filling in the gaps between the cross supports with epoxy/filler. 
Total cost in 2006 was about $1200 plus the cost of mast unstopping/ stepping. 
The repair required cutting out part of the cabin floor pan to allow access to 
glass in the new supports. 

Ed 
Briar Patch, C&C 34 
New Orleans, La. 

On Mon, Apr 11, 2016 at 12:13 PM, Randy Stafford via CnC-List < 
[email protected] > wrote: 



Listers- 

Since the mast is down on my early (hull #7) 30-1, I removed the mast step to 
inspect beneath. The aluminum step is screwed onto a heavily sealed wood block 
~12"x6"x2", which is in turn screwed onto two short timbers running athwartship 
which I'm sure are intended to take the load of the mast and transfer it to the 
hull. Those two timbers have been wet and appear to be a rot risk. The PO 
fitted a heavily sealed wood wedge down into that lowest part of the bilge 
between the floor timbers, to further support the block under the mast step. 

My concern is that the wedge will transfer load from the mast onto the top of 
the keel instead of to the hull via the floor timbers, and thereby contribute 
to separation of the lead ballast part of the keel from the fiberglass keel 
stub i.e. the "C&C smile". Do you think this is a legitimate concern? Any 
thoughts on how to otherwise reinforce the floor timbers or distribute the mast 
load to the hull? 

Also that wedge was sitting in bilge water because the automatic bilge pump 
float switch is a bit aft and a bit higher. Both the automatic and manual bilge 
pump intake tubes are down there in that lowest part of the bilge, but the 
manual pump must be more effective at removing that water because of the float 
switch location. 

Thanks in advance for any comments. 

Cheers, 
Randy Stafford 
S/V Grenadine 
C&C 30-1 #7 
Ken Caryl, CO 

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