I have a 1987 Legend 35 (same basic design, construction, stanchions, etc.). I added a gate, but not by adding another stanchion.
What I did was
- modify the aft-most stanchion to add a angle support down to the deck in the forward direction. I had a machine shop do this, but there are 3rd party support that you can buy ... but these stanchions are tapered and might be hard to find a 3rd part "angle" support to fit.
- I had to drill one additional hole through the toerail/deck/hull for the bolt for this angle support
- Modify the life lines to have them run from the pulpit to this aft stanchion and terminate there with "eyes" on the aft side of the stanchion. This means just measure, cut and re-swage "eyes" to the after end.
- re-feed the life lines from aft to pulpit and re-attach turnbuckles
- Modify or create shorter life line lengths to run from the pushpit to these "eyes" using your desired type of pelican hook
Take a look at the picture and the circled red bits. In the picture, the "gate" is currently open and the aft life line section is lying on the deck, out of sight, against the toerail. The other picture is closer up and show the "eyes" and pelican hooks and angles support.
The result is a LARGE aft gate. I did it this way to avoid installing other stanchions and other such complications, but I really like the result and the larger gate opening. Coming into dock, rafting alongside, hopping down into the dinghy is much easier that a more traditional small gate.
The factory stanchions are through bolted into the toerail (easy to do and to add another hole), but the two angle supports at the bottom of each stanchion are bolted into aluminum backer plates embedded into the deck . There is no deck core immediately around these backer plates ( good ... avoids complications with leaky deck holes wrecking your deck core material.
To add a new stanchion, you would NOT have this embedded backer plate, so you would have to drill through your deck (oversized hole, filled with epoxy, re-drilled with correct sized hole, bedded, etc.) AND have access to the underside of this portion of deck because your would need your own backer plate (G10 or aluminum) and washers and nylock nuts. I know that for my boat, I would have access to the underside of the deck on my starboard side, but NOT on the port side and I would have to cut some sort of access port in the aft cabin liner to get at such a backing plate.
If you where to decide to do a more traditional (read smaller) gate, then the new stanchion and the existing one that makes up the other side of the gate will each need an angled support otherwise they will certainly get bent at some point.
Chris
