I had collected way too many antennas on the back rail. They were ugly, in the way, and likely to get whacked by a dock line. I created my own version of a mini-radar arch by putting a bar across the backstay bridal. The bar is just a piece of 1" polished stainless. The clamps to the rigging wire are a couple pieces of aluminum that clamp on the rigging wire with some soft PCV pads. The wires are wrapped with rigging tape but also protected with plastic tubing where they can be rubbed by the support bars for the bimini cover. One photo shows the base of the wires, with the red arrow pointing to a loop of fine stainless steel braid. The braid is included as a rip wire. Pulling on that wire will cut the rigging tape so I would not have to risk a knife to cut the tape so close to the cables. The antennas include
- Sirius satellite weather
- GPS antenna for AIS
- VHF antenna for AIS
- External GPS for chartplotter.
I had the AIS VHF combined with the regular masthead VHF via a splitter but it was totally unreliable. I suspect the splitter was also responsible for the death of 3 AIS modules in one year. It's worked fine ever since I gave it it's own antenna.
Greg Jackson
SV Jacqui Marie
2004 C36, MKII
tall rig, wing keel,




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