260 bow rail

[Mark]

The rear of the bow rail is held by two bolts on the port and starboard side. I guess these screw into an aluminium plate inbedded in the GRP? One of our bolts nearly went overboard at the weekend. When I went to tighten it (with very little force at all) found that the thread ( I guess ) is stripped in the plate. Re-tapping the hole with a larger thread may be the only option or do these in fact have a nut on the inside and if so can they be located.Regards

 

[Ray Bowles]

Mark, my understanding is that there is a

threaded plate imbedded in the glass. A nut would have too little mass to withstand any torque when tightened. Drilling, retapping oversize is one method but you still have the problem of not enough thread length to hold a bolt. A poor design problem.A better repair is to install a "heli-coil". I will give a slightly longer threaded length.I would clean and blow out the hole with air and use a small hooked probe to see how deep the imbedded plate is. Then install a heli-coil of the proper size.RayS/V SpeedyPS. I hope to sail into your area in 6 years. I'll look you up to see how it worked out. That's a fact.

 

[Mark]

Thanks

Ray thankyou for that information.We would welcome you to sail into Albany. At the moment there are quite a few cruisers "in town" . We have a number of very protected harbours and many many protected bays.May I respectively suggest that if you sail by to the East it be done in the winter months and if you sail by to the West it be done in the summer months.We will put the tinnies (beers) on ice.

 

[Rick Webb]

Can You Get to the Other Side?

On mine I can see the end of the screws if I take the bulkhead off in the V berth. Adding a nut to the inside would be easier than the helicoil.