I am posting these pictures because I havent seen any like this on line and thought you all might like to see what could be happening to your compression post if you havent fixed it yet. I bought this boat knowing that it had this problem but was suprized to see that there really wasnt any post left. Only the trim was acting as the compression post. The interesting thing is there was no external indication that it was this bad inside.

This is what i found when i removed the trim board on the forward face of the post (the one with the head door latch on it. The screws just pulled out as you can see not much wood left to screw to.

view of compression post

This is what it looked like after i removed it.

compression post on the deck

this all fell out while removing the trim piece.

some of the post

For those of you who havent seen the mast step here is the dirty culpret mine had no sealant left in or around the plactic tube. And by the way contray to the riggers thoughts there are plugs located here under the mast to be unplugged when the mast is lifted. He swore there wasnt and cut my below decks under the forward bench seat.

I hope this is informative for everyone. If you havent had your compression post repaired yet i would seriously look into it before it get to this point. We sailed this boat last season and seeing what I see now I really wish I hadnt we could have made it alot worse.

mast step