Lifting a sagging forward cabin top?

[Zach]

Hi guys,

My mast has pushed the step down on the forward cabin top. I'm deciding whether to pull out the beam and push the skin back up, or leave it in place as some sort of register...

Does the main bulkhead lay close enough to the inner skin on tritons to carry the load? If mine is tabbed in across the deck, it's not tabbed in very thick.

I'd like to pull the mast beam out before making the repair so I can get a jig made up to make a new one.

Anyone done it? I'm thinking once the mast is off, I'll cut off the top skin across the low spot, pull out the core... and use a sheet of plywood wedged against the underside to push it upward while the core/solid mast step is in the works.

I've got 10 days out of the water starting tomorrow...

Zach

[Tim]

It may be unrelated to your problem, but be aware that most Tritons have a funny feature: what looks (from the inside) to be a flat spot/depression in the deck in the head area, just aft of the mast beam. This condition exists in every Triton of your and similar vintages that I have seen, including mine, but is not related to a deck compression.

So before you start pushing things back up, take another look and see if what you're seeing might be this particular built-in Triton "feature".

If your mast is coming out shortly, just wait to pull the beam. But if there's any preliminary work you can do, like removing nuts (leave the bolts), cutting any existing tabbing (if present), etc., you can do it now.

[Zach]

Thanks Tim.

I think my inner skin has been compressed, as it's lower than the beam on the aft side, and smushed down lower than the block on the front side. It has a nice puddle of water at times around the base too.

Haulout has been bumped back to Thursday... Rain rain go away...

Zach