Mast Boot

[Andrew Nason]

What is the recomended material for a mast boot?

[Nicholas Carey]

I've met people who swear by a two-layer approach --

1. The mast boot that means business goes on first: this boot is made from a truck tire inner tube and held on with stainless steel hose clamps.

2. The "beauty strip" goes on over that. It's another mast boot, but made from Sunbrella or painted cotton duck, properly lashed in place with marline, the way the Great Rigger in the Sky intended.

Just painted cotton canvas works works well, though.

[StevenBauer]

Nick's way is right but I can't count the number of times I've seen black plastic and duct tape.

Steven

[JimConlin]

Has anyone experimented with the white heat-shrink material used for winter covers?

[Andrew Nason]

Thanks for your replies.
With the inner tube approach what is the proper way to seal the seam where the inner tube is cut horizontaly (assumeing that you use the common trapezoid template)?

[Jay Greer]

I am meeting with my canvas guy on Tuesday in order to make traditional mast boots for our H28. I will take photos and do a follow up for the group.

By tradition, mast boots are made of, unshrunk natural canvas. The boot is fitted to the mast in such a manner that it goes on upside down prior to the stepping of the mast. It is seized on to the upper section of the mast with tarred marlin that will be on the inner side once the boot is capsized. After the stepping of the mast and driving of the wedges, the boot is then, pulled down after a padding of oakum has been placed above the wedges and the mast collar. The lower edge is sized to the collar, again with marlin seizing that has been begun with a two strand eye splice and terminated with a topsail buntline hitch, which will be most secure. Then the boot is treated with a scalding hot bath of boiling water to shrink it in place. Once dry, it can be sealed with seam compound around the upper edge. It then should be painted with an "oil based, semi gloss house enamel" of the color of your choice. Do not use marine enamel for this process! The paint should be mixed with a small bit of melted parafin to allow it to remain flexible. After a season or two, the house enamel will sluff off and can be recoated with a fresh coat, again using a bit of parafin in the mix.
Jay Greer

[bvv]

I made a canvas boot for my first boat after the mast was in by the traditional method; sewed the vertical seam upside down from what would become the inside, then turned it outside in and siezed it on the collar. Innertubes under.

The next boat came with a canvas cover that must have been painted with marine enamel because it was stiff and rotten. At the 11th hour of my haulout, someone suggested fitting a rubber plumbing waste adapter/reducer before stepping which appealed to me more than the innertube undergarment method. I managed to find one at Home Depot that fit perfectly around the mast and collar (8" x 12", I believe), slipped it on to the mast prior to stepping, then slid it down over the collar and secured it after the mast was stepped with hose clamps in the grooves made for that purpose in the reducer. I promised myself I would make a proper canvas boot to go over top, as I had done for my previous boat, but I'm embarressed to say it never happened. The hose clamps looked ugly; I think the new wire clamping arrangement would look better. Twelve years and two mast stepping cycles later, however, it never leaked a drop and took zero maintenance. Just about the only thing on her that hasn't.

The mast's out again, so I get another chance.

.

[bvv]

To answer your question, Andrew, I wrapped the innertube around the mast and collar about five times, stretched. The first wrap is a doozy.

[Bob Cleek]

Innertubes? You're making yourself crazy!

Get a hunk of scrap canvas. Measure the circumference of the mast at the top of the boot. Measure the circumference of the boot lip at the bottom. Measure the diagonal from the top of the boot to the lip. Draw a centerline down the middle of the canvas. Mark off your diagonal distance down the centerline. Run your top and bottom circumference measurements from their center points perpendicular to the centerline at the ends of your diagonal distance. Allow three inches at the top and bottom, or more if you have a huge mast. Allow an inch or so on each side.

Wrap it around the mast and sew the two sides together. Turn the whole tube upside down on the mast, bottom pointing up. Lash the boot top well to the mast. Put some sealant beneath it if you want. Turn it down, hiding the lashing and leaving your stitching concealed behind the turned down boot. Lash the bottom around the lip and trim the selvage. Paint with latex based house paint.

Done.

[bott]

My $0.02:

Avoid the cardinal aesthetic sin of visible hose clamps.

…I don’t care if they are stainless…

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

Well, I see I am going to have to disagree rather firmly with Bob Cleek and Jay Greer.

Having made the appropriate offerings to ward off the lightning bolts about to be hurled in my direction...

Gentlemen. I can see that you are both stalwart supporters of the boat rebuilding industry. I'm glad you can afford it. I cannot, so you won't catch me using a canvas mast boot / mast collar ever again.

Here is the problem:

1. You step the mast, cut out, sew up and lash, then paint with the paint of your choice, a nice canvas mast boot.

2. Jolly good. Looks very tiddly. Quite the proper thing. The cognoscenti of mast boots will all admire it.

3. Over the course of the season, the canvas will rot, and a trickle of rain water will run down the mast and into the mast step, where it will sit and ferment rot

4. You will not spot this.

5. At the end of the season, your canvas mast boot has "had it", and you need to spend another 3-4 hours making a new one for next season, and so on...

6. Meanwhile, your mast step is still rotting...

7. In the end, you need a new mast step - if you are lucky.

8. But you are very salty about the whole thing.

Now, here is the sensible solution, which I came upon shortly after renewing the mast step and two adjacent frame heels :

1. Get some tractor inner tube. (Boatyards usually have tractors...)

2. Cut to shape and glue with rubber dinghy repair cement.

3. Lash to mast, deck, etc.

4. At end of season, unlash from deck upstand, leave on mast.

5. Next season, lash round deck upstand. Time taken: 5 minutes

6. No need to replace rotten mast step.

Feel free to ignore this advice. You didn't pay for it. I did.

[Benchdog]

I basicly did what Cleek says in his post as far as fitting.

I used some leather looking Vinyl stuff. My wife sewed it up. Used velcrow to keep it closed. White rigging tape aroung the top of the boot.

It kept things dry even while taking on green water this fall.

After a full season there is no breakdown in the vinyl. I imagine I'll get a few years out of it without to much hastle.

[elf]

Kathleen's mast boot was made of sticky Ace bandage. After careful wrapping of the long elastic strip, out came the can of black plastic handle coating (the type for coating pliers for insulation from electrical current and cold) and a paintbrush.

[Bob Cleek]

Well, Andrew, it goes without saying that 1) your mast step should have sufficient limber drain holes in it to prevent the problems mentioned, and 2) That latex paint I mentioned should be thinned sufficiently to permeate the canvas and really provide a waterproof shield. As I mentioned, you should put some goop (bedding) around the neck of the book to prevent water from making its way down the mast. That said, the instructions on the box apply to all mast boots:

"For pregnancy protection ONLY- Does not protect against STDs. If used properly, ... will help to reduce the risk of pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. Although no contraceptive can guarantee 100% effectiveness. For maximum benefits, it is important to follow the instructions for use printed on the inner side of the box. "

[Jay Greer]

[QUOTE=Andrew Craig-Bennett]Well, I see I am going to have to disagree rather firmly with Bob Cleek and Jay Greer.

I also, respectivly, disagree with your opinion. I have been making mast boots in the manner I described for fifty plus years and haven't had a boot or mast rot yet! I do take issue with the procedure of using inner tube and hose clamps in order to make a mast boot. That method will cause, temperature and humidity change, condensation on the inner surface of the rubber boot that can, eventually lead to wet or dry rot! So far as I know, the method I described has been used for over 200Years with no reported problems as to the method used, when done correctly!
As stated earlier, When I step my masts, I will post pictures as to how the proceedure is done.
Jay Greer

[Hughman]

So far as I know, the method I described has been used for over 200 Years with no reported problems

How you feelin', old feller?

The innertube idea is ok for aluminum masts, which is where it comes from.

There are more durable substitutes for canvas, Sunbrella, for instance. They will last several years. I still have some Duradon, which is helforstout, designed for truck tarps. wonder what replaced it....

Won't pouring boiling water on an unpainted canvas boot trap water under it? And damage the varnish and paint too, I Imagine.

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

I'm sorry, but Bob lives in San Francisco and Jay lives in Port Townsend.

I see no reason to take the advice of anyone who lives in those places on keeping rain water out of a wooden boat - they hardly know what rain is!

I never said anything about using Jubilee* clips!

Fit round mast with the funnel in the catch rain position, lash, turn down over lashing, lash over upstand. Run a bead of sealer round the top to stop any water lodging there.

*("hose clamps" in the Americas).

[Bob Cleek]

San Francisco annual rainfall: 21.5 inches. Not to mention fog.

Seattle annual rainfall 36 inches. Annual snowfall 8.6. Not to mention fog.

Trust me, Andrew, it's wet enough for rot out here! LOL

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

I looked up Port Townsend and the rainfall looked more like yours than like Seattle's (admittedly - this was from a site charged with promoting tourism to the town!)

Anyway, I like my tractor inner tube. It's one more part of the boat (and believe me, there are plenty of them!) that has been made a little stronger and a little more foolproof in my ownership.

It might well be that if I had a Vertue or an H28 I would be of your persuasion, but I have another 10-13 feet of boat to think about and maintain, on a very tight budget, so I trade a certain amount of "tiddely" for simplicity and ease of maintenance. Not enough to stop me having a vert trad gaff cutter, though...

Now, some time I must do something about the 38 year old engine...

[Andrew Nason]

I've been looking in my 2004-2005 Sailrite Catologe and a couple things cought my eye. What do you think of Aqualon for a mast boot, or perhapse somthing more breathable like the polyester Top Gun?

[Jay Greer]

How you feelin', old feller?

Won't pouring boiling water on an unpainted canvas boot trap water under it? And damage the varnish and paint too, I Imagine.

Nope!
Jay

[Todd Bradshaw]

Much about breathability is more myth than fact. It works best when there is some sort of pressure or temperature differential on either side of the piece of fabric - some kind of force that makes the little water bits want to pass through to the other side, because otherwise they have no real reason to leave their current location. When it quits raining and the sun starts heating up a big mass of damp air under your boat cover, moisture will start finding it's way out from underneath it and breathability happens. I doubt a breathable mast boot is really going to do much of this. If you want ventillation around it, you're probably better off leaving the companionway hatch open. Top Gun would probably make an excellent boot because it's tough, it resists U.V extremely well and it's very water repellant, but not for it's breathability.

[johngsandusky]

When I bought my boat, it had a conglomerate of canvas and duct tape. Neither appealing nor watertight, I removed it. I don't use a mast boot. Any rain or spray runs down the stick into the bilge where it mixes with a little seawater and gets pumped out. Anything not truly watertight ought to be left to breath.

[Nanoose]

Jay Greer...we're looking forward to the pictures you promised....

Soon???? (stepping the new mast in 4 days).

[Don Victore]

"The great rigger in the sky" I love that!!! I guess another way of saying that is as it should be. And then there was wind

[Jay Greer]

Well, we are still fussing with the rigging repairs but, here are the promised photos of the mast boots for my H28. More correctly they are mast coats.



The H28 has box section masts and so the mast coats were made to fit the cross section as well as the deck flanges. As mentioned earlier, they will be seized with marlin after the wedging is set and packed with oakum. They will then be shrunk with boiling water and painted with enamel that has a bit of melted parafynn added to it.
Jay

[Jay Greer]

I might mention that the white cedar wedges are shaped to touch each other at the outboard edges but are slightly gapped on the inboard side to provide drainage from condensation and a bit of ventalation resulting from temperature changes
Jay

[Dave Williams]

Hi - I'm Dave Williams' wife and appreciate the dialogue about mast boots. We're wondering what the difference is in using a marine oil-based enamel paint (Kirby) rather than an oil-based enamel house paint to paint the boot. Does the house paint truly stay more flexible than the marine paint? Why? I'm trying to make mast boots for the first time ever - wish me luck! We will be bringing our boat back to Port Townsend after our restoration in about a week for a little more work and launching. It has junk sails - we bought her from Martin Mills. Do you know the boat, Jay? Maybe we'll see you around. Thanks anybody for more good ideas - Kathy

[Jay Greer]

Kathy,
Yes, I know your boat although, I have have always seen it under sail.
The reason for using oil based semi gloss house paint on mast coats and canvas coach roofs is that house paint is designed to chalk and sluff off and therefore does not
build up and crack or peel off the canvas over time. Rather, is wears off as the canvas is scrubbed over time and when the weave begins to show through it is an easy matter to apply another thin coat of color, without the need of sanding which can damage the canvas. A teasoon of melted parafin added to a half pint of paint will allow the boot coating to flex and not crack. Parafin should not be added to paint used for coach roofs.
Fair Winds,
Jay

[Dave Williams]

Jay, thanks so much for getting back to me so soon and for your very valuable information about painting mast boots. Now I understand! :>) - Kathy

[Vince Brennan]

DAMN Imagestation, anyway!

Anyone have any pics of Jay's mast boots?

[Sailor]

Yeah I second that, D@mned Immage station. Pics man pics. There has to be a better way to post pics on these forums.

[Joe ( Cold Spring on Hudson )]

Sunbrella matching the color of patina bronze works nice
I should have pulled it up and secured the lace around the partner ring before I took the photo. But you get the idea

[Jay Greer]

Sorry guys, I forgot to post these of "Bright Star's" Mast Coats.

[Jay Greer]

[donald branscom]

I have seen mast boots made out of EVERYTHING!

They all leak.

I had a boat and made a fiberglass mast boot that I applied directly onto the mast and deck figuring i could just cut it off later on. Much later on.

Well it leaked. So then I made one with a rubber inner tube with black nylon ties and put it over the fiberglass boot.
It leaked.

Then one rainy miserable night at 2 or 3 am some sealant or goop i used leaked AGAIN.

Finally I just put duct tape around it and told myself i would remove all that stuff someday and fix it right. Well you know it never did leak again with that duct tape.

So i did not touch it.

BTW if you do not live on the boat how do you know if it leaked?

Mast boots leak one little drob and than that drop runs under the boot and towards the front of the boat and drips on your bunk.

So if you have a hatch over a bunk(never do that) then you have two ways to get woke up an a rainy night.

Then you will have to stay up telling stories with all the other live aboards that got up to tie down their neighbors roller furler or a bowsprit banging on a dock box or some other problem cause by people tha only see their boat in July. HAHAHhahahhaha


Oh - Just one more thing. It may not leak but does it SQUEEEEEK!!!

[lofting4fun]

Hi All,
I had installed the canvas on my schooner 5 years ago, and have had 0 problems,I didnt need to shrink with hot water though,I wetted out and used some thinned paint from Kirby's. I used theconfig from Chapell's....that was what was on.Around the base/on top of the boot's brim at the deck was a 1' wide strip of lead that was nailed using copper tacks.The wedges had been painted in red lead,the cabin top had irish felt under the cabin top canvas,and the original boot's brimwas done as above.Dont know where you guys are getting the rot issue about the canvas from?Ive only seen rot on canvas from debris/cracked from too much paint,or non-boiled linseed applied.or sweet water under.

[Dan McCosh]

I have seen mast boots made out of EVERYTHING!

They all leak.

I had a boat and made a fiberglass mast boot that I applied directly onto the mast and deck figuring i could just cut it off later on. Much later on.

Well it leaked. So then I made one with a rubber inner tube with black nylon ties and put it over the fiberglass boot.
It leaked.

Then one rainy miserable night at 2 or 3 am some sealant or goop i used leaked AGAIN.

Finally I just put duct tape around it and told myself i would remove all that stuff someday and fix it right. Well you know it never did leak again with that duct tape.

So i did not touch it.

BTW if you do not live on the boat how do you know if it leaked?

Mast boots leak one little drob and than that drop runs under the boot and towards the front of the boat and drips on your bunk.

So if you have a hatch over a bunk(never do that) then you have two ways to get woke up an a rainy night.

Then you will have to stay up telling stories with all the other live aboards that got up to tie down their neighbors roller furler or a bowsprit banging on a dock box or some other problem cause by people tha only see their boat in July. HAHAHhahahhaha


Oh - Just one more thing. It may not leak but does it SQUEEEEEK!!!

Hate to admit it, but the driest boot I ever made was a white plastic garbage bag held in place with white duct tape.

[paladin]

I wuzzzint gonna say anything...but I will.......Starting with the 38 footer....I used some plastic a little heavier than trash bags, then wrapped in place with moldable 1 inch wide rubber electricians tape....then on top of that to hide the sloppy look I had a custom boot similar to Jay Greer's solution made....never leaked a drop, but when I did open the thing up just prior to unstepping the mast there was water between the boot and the first part of the solutuion...Tana Mari used much the same scenario, and I found moisture netween the inner and outter boots....the nice one leaked an ever so small amount, but the staves blocking the mast in place were never damp.

[Steve Lansdowne]

Seems like I read an article on this some time ago in WB Magazine. Use the index/search function on WB.com to figure out which article this was.

[donald branscom]

Hate to admit it, but the driest boot I ever made was a white plastic garbage bag held in place with white duct tape.

If I was the President I would give you the recycling award of the year bro!

[Sjö Vargen]

has anybody looked in the marlinspike seaman book by h. g. smith?

[Peerie Maa]

Some people use these:

[Vinny&Shawn]

follow the directions of the book The Marlinspike Sailor,by Hervey Garrett Smith,page 107. This boot is installed yes , with the mast out, but there is no folding over. If you measure and cut correctly it will fit tight, both mast and collar. Have used this type for 30 years no leaks,no clamps.
Canvas is very good done in Jay Greer fashion but Sunbrella works great also.
We serve the top and bottom collar with tarred marline.

[Vinny&Shawn]

[michigangeorge]

Kathleen's mast boot was made of sticky Ace bandage. After careful wrapping of the long elastic strip, out came the can of black plastic handle coating (the type for coating pliers for insulation from electrical current and cold) and a paintbrush.

Elf, would you happen to have any photos of Kathleens mast boot and do you know if she has a deck flange? My 18' Fenwick Williams has no boot or flange and the distance between the deck and the gooseneck is too short for a normal mast boot. This Ace bandage method seems to be just what I need :-)

[Vinny&Shawn]

Build a flange and fit a boot to it.

[Jay Greer]

I have always fabricated mast partner deck flanges out of metal as it imparts strength for the wedging. An added bonus is that you can fit a dummy of the mast into the flange, prior to stepping the mast and make the boot to match exactly.
Jay

[zertgold]

It seems that a mast collar is needed for most of these designs discussed above to prevent flowing water on deck, and rain from getting in. I need to fabricate something, and was thinking of two half circles made from wood, or possibly bolting a bronze porthole to the deck without the window.

[wizbang 13]

My mast went in the boat in 1984, and it has never come out. It is slatherated in, wait for it.... epoxy.
I broke the seal a few times for raking the mast in the early years.
But even if I took it out every year, I could grind the old glue and re epoxy it faster than just the hand sewing part of traditional.