In 2022 (a year before this post) I gave my mast a little re-furbish, cutting out rotted parts and letting in new wood where sections had been previously cut out and bodged. I should have made a new one but the old one had a story to tell.

The rotted ‘spreader bars’ were replaced with a new dowel and new ‘button’ made for the top in order to take an all-round white light for navigation. The spar was then varnished with a couple of coats of DIY store yacht varnish.

The first issue was that at night, the all-round white was blinding and destroyed any kind of night vision. The solution was to replace the all-round white on the mast with a sectored light and then mount a white transom light. this in theory should give me a safe area within the cockpit without any glaring lights. Whether this combination works or not remains to be seen. I’m expecting some light bleed but hopefully not enough to make night time navigation impossible.

The DIY store varnish failed over winter and was a complete waste of time. I re-varnished with Epifanes Clear Varnish going through all the thinned coats and final coatings, sanded lightly in between with 320 grit paper. It’s come out lovely after the specified seven coats so I’m hoping with an annual top-up coat it will last a good amount of time.