Have you checked your (bow)eyes lately?

[soling42]

Pulling our 04' h260 onto the trailer last May I noticed the bow eye had moved rather substantially so I began to worry about how well it was installed. last weekend I wedged myself into the bow and crammed my cell phone camera into the access to see how the factory installer had done. Egads!

The holes drilled in the tiny backing plate was so over sized that the nuts(without washers of course) were nearly buried and ready to pull out the back side, and quickly through the bow. I loosened the nuts outside and backed it into the bow where I got my hand down inside and surprisingly, and rather luckily, the nuts spun right off by hand.

I found a piece of 3/4"x 8" galv pipe, drilled a couple 3/8" holes and rebedded the eye with 3m 5200. All together a pretty easy fix before it became an embarrassingly giant hole in the bow at the ramp while the boat drifts away. 2hrs project at zero cost. I'd highly recommend to all trailer boaters that they have their eyes checked.

Good luck and have a great season, Mike

 

[Benny17441]

Have noticed a few boats that do not have backing plates in the bow eye. I was wondering if they are designed to detach with minimum damage in case of excessive pulling forces. Two small holes could be prefferable to a missing chunk. I was taught early that a sailboat is floated not winched into a trailer. The main function of the bow eye is to facilitate guiding the boat into the trailer and to secure the bow for trailering. Other than the usual road bump there should not be any large forces applied to the bow eye. Oh heck I'm probably wrong and it is just shody manufacturing.

 

[Kivalo]

Mine came loose, earlier this year no less. When I contacted Hunter they said I could just tighten the bow eye and I should be good. Evidently most boweyes were reinforced with an extra block of wood inside the hull, although not all. I just tightened mine and I have been checking it all summer. No issues, just as Hunter said. We'll see about long term though.

 

[soling42]

I totally agree with the sage insight that Benny often shares here(thanks) but I have to say that not every day at the ramp allows a boat to be floated right into place and that bow eye'd better hold on a rough ol' Louisiana style back road. If I approached my chain plates or anchor eye(among others) with the "blow out before hurting the boat" plan I'd be missing some rather important hardware on windy days. Even my replacement backing plate had better be able to do its job to help the boat resist disaster if I have a need for it to hold fast when called on.

The factory backing plate on the bow eye was a mess and nearly failed. That may not be everybody's problem but why depend on questionably secured hardware. Another rub I have had with hardware is the way it's often attached with inadequate backing plates or worse, using SS bolts simply threaded into embedded aluminum plates. If it's attached w/o nuts and washers, all it takes is a few years of salt or incompatible metal corrosion and we have a completely insufficient connection that will show little sign of imminent failure of critical connections(like my solitary bow pulpit/forestay deck fastener).

Any indication or alert of possible failure is a call to look further. Nothing rings more hollow than a bad day on the water where you say "I just knew that'd eventually fail".

I'm usually glad to find problems.....before they fail but maybe I like messin' about in boats too much sometimes too. Have a great day, Mike

 

[soling42]

Here's a quick pic of the backing plate from my bow eye. I placed a 3/8" bolt next to it so you can judge how well the installer had done in sizing the hole to fit the bolt. The nuts were both 1/2 way through the plate when I got to it. Not exactly fine craftsmanship. It looks like he used a paddle bit to drill it.

Love the boat but most production lines don't allow for perfection so no matter what vessel you own I'd check those critical connections first and then everything else as time allows.

Have a safe season, Mike

 

[John23883]

Here's my bow eye fix

I had a loose bow eye the day I brought my H26 home 6 years ago. The backing plate was a thin piece of wood.

 

[soling42]

John, Thanks for the idea, I knew I'd seen it somewhere. It fixed a hidden problem that would really bite you when you need it to hold fast.
It's all good now, Thanks again for the idea to an easy fix, Mike