Wooden Mast Partners

[allene]

Originally Posted by Ian McColgin

Duct tape makes sunbrella redundant at best and can, if you're unlucky, cause the condensation that leads to rot at the partners. It's dirt simple to make a proper canvass mast boot.

It is not simple to get anything to seal against a square mast and having had rain water rot my mast step, I think keeping the rain out is very important. The problem is that the canvas mast boot will not seal on the flat sections and rain water will just run down to the mast step.

I am not understanding the condensation issue. If you have something that is water proof, how can it differ from another method that is water proof. Is that expensive silicon self adhesive tape, that doesn't keep the rain out going to be better for condensation than cheap duct tape?

I probably should have clarified that I formed a tapered boot out of sheet plastic then duct taped over that so there was only 1/2 inch or so of tape on the mast and that was about 5 inches off the cabin top. The tape did not contact the partners. I covered the plastic with tape then covered all of that with sumbrella which was keeping the sun off the tape. The tape degrades rapidly in the sun so the sumbrella is not redundant.