Y33 Pulling chainplates

[rekkabell]

Am currently pulling the chainplates off my boat(tall rig, engine in the back). Found some pit corrosion in all of them, and one of them had a crack (near a welding point). I'm waiting for replacements at the moment. I was wondering if anyone here has had trouble with the glassed SS anchors that the chainplates are bolted to? Have you ever found pit corrosion or fissures on yours? It would be silly to replace the chainplates only to have the bottom anchors fail.
Since my chainplates had some wear, I wonder if the 'anchor' that is bonded to the hull has suffered the same. Although, because it's not technically removable(glassed in) it makes it difficult to inspect, esp the area into which the chainplates slide into (that sort of deep 'U'), it's to narrow to fit anything XD...

Unfortunately removing the chainplates also revealed some mulchy marine plywood core around the edge of the hole... it ought to have been sealed/glassed in out of the factory...

Side note: Removing the chainplates also permitted us to remove the whole starboard side cabinet! After many years of hard sailing the front panel had mostly detached from the back... some of the screws were bent. All of the boat's wiring was replaced last winter but some of the integral wire conduits were jammed with old wiring(we couldn't reuse them), with the cabinet off we were able to get the thick wire braids out and free the conduit .. it's ready to be new wires now!

 

[mermike]

Hi Rekka,

I had similar issues when I replaced the chainplates on Tosca. There's a thread in this forum. Your chainplates are toast.
I also had wet plywood around one chainplate, so I drilled through the top skin around it and filled it with Git Rot. i epoxy-filled and redrilled all of the chainplate pass-throughs in the deck. That took care of the exposed plywood core. These ReciproTools rasps fit in a Sawzall and made squaring up the new holes so much easier.

I inspected the chaiplate attachments at that time, which looked (and still look) about the same as yours. There was no evidence of delamination or anything but a crisp ring in the hull when tapping all around them.

 

[mermike]

I'm also interested in more detail on how you got the cabinet out - not that I'm excited to try!

 

[rekkabell]

I had similar issues when I replaced the chainplates on Tosca. There's a thread in this forum. Your chainplates are toast.
I also had wet plywood around one chainplate, so I drilled through the top skin around it and filled it with Git Rot. i epoxy-filled and redrilled all of the chainplate pass-throughs in the deck. That took care of the exposed plywood core. These ReciproTools rasps fit in a Sawzall and made squaring up the new holes so much easier.
I inspected the chaiplate attachments at that time, which looked (and still look) about the same as yours. There was no evidence of delamination or anything but a crisp ring in the hull when tapping all around them.

I had seen your post Mike, and that gave me a pretty good clue that ours were indeed toast. I just went to drop them off this morning at a fabricator. Glad your chainplate attachments were fine, I'll try and inspect mine a bit better tomorrow (been cold past few days, makes it difficult to want to touch metal).
Thanks for sharing your process for fixing that rotten plywood core. Had never heard of Git Rot. My plan was to hollow out the bad wood-either way, not looking forward to making holes in my deck, but it's gatta be done.

I'm also interested in more detail on how you got the cabinet out - not that I'm excited to try!

If you remove the top trim it exposes much of the screws holding the front panel to the cabinet with all of the shelving (that screw all alongside the top into a fibreglass lip), there are more screws on the lower left and right side(not a ton though). I included another photo showing the cabinet still in place but with the front panel gone. There was also a bunch of screws that were supposed to hold the front panel to the cabinet but all of those were ripped out of their holes...might be harder to extract on your boat, wasn't on ours given that none of them were gripping anything.
Much of the cabinet rests on the fibreglass bulge on the back wall and over on the locker dividers, to remove it you'd have to take off a bunch of screws from inside the lockers(from under the cabinet). Then the whole thing slides right out (make sure to disconnect the light in one of the cabinets if you take it off).

To take the whole cabinet out you'd also have to remove whatever is in the way. Had to take the barometer and a hygrometer/thermometer off the wall.

 

[mermike]

I should add that I gave the deck time to dry. The Git Rot came last. Not a quick process. It's going to be difficult this time of year in the PNW.

 

[rekkabell]

I should add that I gave the deck time to dry. The Git Rot came last. Not a quick process. It's going to be difficult this time of year in the PNW.

Yes indeed :/. No sunny days on the forecast, either. For now i'll focus on clean-up and preparing the surface (also going to fix up the cabinet, there was a bit of rot near and around where the chainplates pass). I've got time anyway, it'll be a long while before I get the new chainplates.

Reminds me of when we replaced all of the windows(that was in 2018), it took forever to find a good dry weather window to finish the work. Dry weather matters for adhesives and epoxy.

 

[rekkabell]

My new chainplates are in! They're a lot thicker than they were before, but that's fine. Had to widen the holes in the deck a little, same for the SS plates on deck.

We kept the old chainplates(some parts were still ok), had them cut down, with holes drilled in and used them to link up the two chainplates inside the cabin. One hole on each side had bad dry rot(was like that when we bought the boat), so this will reenforce the connection.

 

[mermike]

We kept the old chainplates(some parts were still ok), had them cut down, with holes drilled in and used them to link up the two chainplates inside the cabin. One hole on each side had bad dry rot(was like that when we bought the boat), so this will reenforce the connection.

I like the reinforcement between the chainplates. The plywood bulkhead is the only thing keeping them at the correct angle, and water intrusion is a common issue. I will do this next time I pull the stick, which I sincerely hope is never.

Congratulations, by the way!