Due to the stress from the halyard my deck has pulled up and created a crack about two inches down inside the mast step . The crack is about 1/4" wide and goes around the entire opening and it is leaking. I first put some marine tex in the crack and then put a weight on the deck to close the crack so the marine tex would ooze out and then smoothed it out. Looked good and closed the crack but after I sailed for the first time the deck pulled up and opened the crack. Someone suggested I use epoxy. So I cleaned out the crack and filled it with epoxy and put more weight on the deck to close the crack and let the epoxy ooze out. I smoothed it out, let it dry..Looked good and closed the crack just like the marine tex. Sailed today and after I got back...the crack re-opened and leaked. Not sure what to do at this point. The guy at West Marine suggested sanding everything down...put more epoxy in the crack..put weight on the deck to close the crack but this time cut some fiberglass cloth and put it around the inside of the mast step on top of the epoxy..then cover the cloth with more epoxy until saturated. I am more concerned with the leaking than the crack. Will the cloth with epoxy stop the leaking? Any suggestions wouldbe appreciated.