Mast Flotation

Porpoise2

Porpoise2

New Member
Even though the water's still cold for sailing here, I prepared the boat for the first time this season and found I couldn't see any cork block on the bottom of the mast. Sure enough, the bottom cork had disintegrated and fallen deeply inside.

So I went to Walmart's swim section and bought two octagonal swim noodles—not to fill the spars with flotation (as I'd mentioned here before)—but to fill the mast.

I cut 1/8th out of the of the noodle lengthwise, put a blue plastic clamp (shown) tightly around the noodle, and wound masking tape tightly every four inches—overlapping the ends. I secured a line to one end of the noodle with more tape, and pulled the wrapped noodle through the mast—inside of which I'd sprayed silicone spray. It was still a tight pull, but after the masking tape gets wet and loosens, the flotation should be a snug fit and not fall out. Comments?

SunfishMastStuffing.jpg


(This "Sunfish" replaces my high-hassle-factor Tornado catamaran in the background.)
 
Adding "floatation" inside a mast is kind of a exercise in futility.If the mast leaks the noodles will eventually end up absorbing water and/or blocking any water that gets in from flowing out.
Air has more "floatation" than anything else. They add "floatation material" to boats to prevent spaces from filling up with water when submerged. Notice they don't fill the hull with foam. Only use specifically placed blocks for structural strength not to keep the boat afloat.
Capsize preventors are added to the top "outside" of the mast/upper spar in the form usually of a bottle to keep the boat from turtling.
 
Mike4947, You are confirming our suspicions.

My jr physicist daughter observed mast buoyancy is a function of displacement and weight. Adding stuff inside the mast only increases it’s mass without increasing the displacement. Her conclusion was P2’s mast will float lower in the water with the added weight of the recreational rigatoni.
 
jr physicist is correct. The only thing that will add "flotation" is more displacement, thus the water bottle on top of the mast trick.

Fred
 
I just repaired a colleagues mast. I glued the end caps in with 5200. There was no cork. He submerged it in Sunapee this past weekend. There were no bubbles!
 
Megan said:
My jr physicist daughter observed mast buoyancy is a function of displacement and weight. Adding stuff inside the mast only increases it’s mass without increasing the displacement. Her conclusion was P2’s mast will float lower in the water with the added weight of the recreational rigatoni.
Click to expand...
Rigatoni? I used recreational rigati! :p

She's right, of course, but not having two end caps led me to believe that any flotation is desirable over [essentially] none (and the one cap has two small halyard pulley holes in it anyway). And especially the "swim noodle" as flotation! It's a really tough, flexible, plastic foam—and not like styrofoam at all. By itself, it floats really high in the water. :)

As to "absorbing water", I think that could be determined by casual handling of the mast: plus I doubt that will happen with this particular foam type. Pieces have floated by that looked very worn (possibly afloat all winter long) from rubbing on shoreline rocks, but floating as high as ever.

A few years ago, I bought a Canadian-made black plastic gadget that has a loop molded on one end and a rotating, threaded end to attach to a two-liter soda bottle. (But only 'cause I thought it looked cool—I didn't have a use for it then).

I may cable-tie the gadget and bottle to the top of the spar as suggested: my extended immersion last year was the clincher.
 
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