My 1983 Hobie 16 (bought it new) has the one piece mast that hasn't been sealed for a bunch of years. It was done originally by my local dealer who is no longer in biz. The boat has been in storage and now I'm getting back into sailing it, but don't want to take it out and have the mast fill up. What is the best way? Anything else I should be aware of?
Thanks.
Jim

The totally anal retentive way to do it would be to remove all the hardware (including endcaps) and replace it one by one sealing all the rivets (including their centers if using standard rivets) with 3M 5200.

The more effecient way would be to go around everything on the mast with a smathering of 3M 5200 (it cleans up well with mineral spirits) without removing anything.

If you wish, you can lay the mast in water and push it under looking for bubbles to see where the leaks are and fix only those areas.

I like that last idea. Didn't know about 3M 5200.
Thanks.

Sorry to beat a dead horse here, but I just tried to seal the mast of my new (to me) h16 and it wasn't that obvious if I was actually sealing anything or not. The whole process was much clearer to me before I had seen the top of a mast.

So - do you have to take the end cap off? or just slather 5200 around the edges?

Sorry to burden everyone with this - I hate turtling, and the guy that owned this boat before me said he used to turtle it all the time.