Thanks again for everyone's input.

To clarify why I am installing a SSB. My boat is a 28' documented vessel with a fisheries endorsement. I fish commercially as much as 100 nm from shore. Any documented commercial fishing vessel operating outside of VHF radio range from shore stations (maybe 25-30 miles on a good day) is required by the Commercial Fishing Vessel Safety Act to carry a MF/HF radio. I have my FCC ship station license and restricted radiotelephone operator permit. I also have a 406 MHz Type 2 EPIRB (also required by law) and other safety devices too numerous to name (also required by law). All I really need to be able to do is contact the nearest shore stations. I'm not looking to talk halfway around the world.

Now back to the installation. I'm leaning toward a guyed installation on the pilot house roof. This will get the antenna up and away from all metal structures. I drew up a sketch of the concept, but I still can't seem to upload any picture files to this server. I'm planning on going with a Shakespeare 5390 17.5' fiberglass coated whip. I'm thinking of attaching three stainless guy wires about 4' up from the base. The idea I have for attaching anchors for the guy wires is to fabricate three aluminum brackets with holes to clip the guy wires to and installing them 120° apart on the antenna whip by wrapping them with fiberglass tape and encapsulating with resin, much the same way that the eyes on fishing rods are attached to the rod blanks. The stainless steel guy wires will attach to three points on the edge of the pilot house roof. My question is will these metal brackets and guy wires cause problems with antenna performance (or roast the occupants of the boat)? The brackets will be electrically isolated from the conductors inside the whip by the fiberglass coating on the whip, but will RF energy still be affected (shunted down through the guy wires to the pilot house)? Does anyone else have any other ideas?

Brad