Oday 23 Backstay chainplate

Scott On Eagles Wings · Jul 12, 2011

Mine is bent to match the angle of the back stay.

Joe11688 · Jul 12, 2011

Indysailor said:
I am going to install a new backstay chainplate on my boat soon. The one I got from Rudy is straight, but the original one had a slight forward bend in it and I'm wondering whether that was done intentionally or whether it bent when my mast came down. It acctually failed right at the bend.
If anyone is going to be on their boat soon, please take a look at yours and let me know what you see.
Thanks!

I just replaced a fore stay chain plate today on my boat. What a son of a gun it was to get at the nuts and washers inside the bow. I had to remove the small plywood bulkhead inside and part of the gunwale molding outside around the bow. I like working with Butyl Tape.

Tomorrow I'll put the rubber back into the gunwale molding and screw the bulkhead back in place. I plan on replacing the Teak block under my mast Tabernacle with a piece of Trex and I'm going to bed it with the Butyl Tape.

Joe11688 · Jul 17, 2011

Indysailor said:
I just finished re-rigging this morning. Also used butyl tape for bedding the chainplate- it's real nice to work with, compared to adhesive caulk. Mast is back up and I'll be getting her wet again in a day or two.

The foot of my mast was so corroded and far gone that I had to cut 2" off it yesterday. Back in the 1990s when I lost my mast, I had a new mast made up by Rig-Rite and they installed a special stainless steel plate for my Kenyon hinged tabernacle. Consequently, electrolysis has set up between the two metals through the years. My mast is a Z-190 made by Z Diffusion or Z-Spar, and they are out of business.
I knew this problem was coming a few years ago when I brought my mast to a local welder and after he made repairs to the foot of my mast, I tried to insulate the two metals by using epoxy. The other day I brought my boat and mast to another Marine welder on the river and he told me that they would need to cut 2" off my mast and a piece of mast would need to be welded to my mast with flat stock welded to the seam at a labor cost of $300!

I don't think so!
What I did was; I cut off the 2" and added two 1" pieces of Trex between the top hinged plate and that special plate with the mast plug that fit into the mast. I showed my plates to Rudy yesterday and told him what I was going to do and he said that it was doable.
Sometimes you have to take another approach and "think out of the box."

emergpa1 · Jul 17, 2011

Trinkka said:
I just replaced a fore stay chain plate today on my boat. What a son of a gun it was to get at the nuts and washers inside the bow. I had to remove the small plywood bulkhead inside and part of the gunwale molding outside around the bow. I like working with Butyl Tape.

Tomorrow I'll put the rubber back into the gunwale molding and screw the bulkhead back in place. I plan on replacing the Teak block under my mast Tabernacle with a piece of Trex and I'm going to bed it with the Butyl Tape.

Amen, I love the tape. I had to do the same rebedding, and had to cut off the portion of the rub rail that covers the forester chain plate. I think those bolts are the toughest ones to access on the boat, with the possible exception of putting the pipe clamp on the sink end of the aft sink drain hose.

RichBone · Jul 17, 2011

I agree Keith, the bolts on the stemhead fitting have got to be the hardest. You have to wedge yourself up into the bow with room for only one arm extended and reach as far as you can and feel with your fingers 'cause you can't turn your head toward it to see.

Rich

emergpa1 · Jul 17, 2011

RBone said:
I agree Keith, the bolts on the stemhead fitting have got to be the hardest. You have to wedge yourself up into the bow with room for only one arm extended and reach as far as you can and feel with your fingers 'cause you can't turn your head toward it to see.

Rich

Hah, yeah and then you drop the nut or the washer two or three times forcing you to completely wiggle back out to pick them back up. They r easy to drop b-cuz you can't see what you r doing and you can only get one hand up there to hold washer and start the nut. What I started doing is to put a small bit of butyl on the washer, and let that will hold it in place while you start the nut.

RichBone · Jul 17, 2011

Yeah, I've used that trick with butyl too.

Rich

Joe11688 · Jul 23, 2011

Indysailor said:
PO put an inspection port in my bow deck so I can get to that stuff pretty easy. Still not looking forward to re bedding the stemhead bolts or anything else up there. It's tight!

I had to take part of the rub rail loose where it goes around the bow which meant removing the rubber from the Starboard side all the way around the bow to about four feet of the Port bow to get the old stem chain plate out. Because of the angle of the chainplate, you're not going to be able stick all the bolts into it as Main Sail has demonstrated in his thread on bedding deck hardware.
I had to remove the small bulkhead in my bow in order to get at the bolts to thread the nuts and washers and it's still a son of a gun trying to do that with a ratchet and extension w/socket but it's doable with patience.
I cleaned up the area under the gunwale molding and used a dab of left over BoatLife Boat Caulk on every screw head and screwed the molding right back on. I cleaned and let the rubber soak in a bucket of warm soapy water and stuck it back into the molding.
After that project was complete, it was on to the next project.
I had to cut 2 inches off the bottom of my mast. Back in the mid 1990s when I had Rig-Rite set up my new Z Spar mast with a Kenyon stainless steel mast Tabernacle and utility plate, they made up a mast plug out of stainless steel which caused the bottom of my mast to corrode. Two years ago I was able to have my mast welded but this year it was terminal again. I had my son come down with his cross cut saw with a carbide tip blade, cut my mast. I gave the two inch piece of my Z-190 mast to Rudy so that he can have some mast plugs made up. Hopefully I'll be able to buy one off him and stick it on my mast. I had to put the same mast plug back in and I made up the 2" difference with two pieces of Trex. I cut up a one gallon plastic milk container to use as a separator between the stainless steel and the Aluminum.
I replaced the 1" Teak under my mast step with a piece of 12"X5" piece of Trex and caulked it with Butyl Tape. This will be permanent on my boat. The mast plug and the Trex is temporary until I can get an Aluminum mast plug made up and figure out what to use for a 2 1/4" spacer. It looks kind of fugly, but it works. Talk about fugly,--check out these two guys.

Joe11688 · Jul 23, 2011

Indysailor said:
Coolest. Repair. Ever.
No comment about the two guys in the picture.

It looks like your mast step is elevated (between the cabin top and the trex). Is that original or did you do that?

I did that myself back in the 1990s when I was having my new Z-Spar mast worked on by Rig-Rite. My original mast tabernacle was an el cheapo cast Aluminum extrusion with a built in sheave under it for the Jib halyard and I hated it with a passion. At the time, my 1/8" upper stays were still in great condition and the rigger told me that he could leave them and just make up some new lower stays with 5/32" wire. Because of the fact that the old mast extrusion was longer than the new Kenion hinge, he told me that I needed to add about 1 -1/8" to the top of my cabin in order for my upper stays to come right. So I used a piece of 1-1/8 thick Teak and mounted the Kenyon hinge and the utility plate to the cabin myself.
I never realized the advantage of a raised mast step back then until years later when I started using a Gin Pole to raise/lower my mast withe roller furler connected to it. That 1-1/8" height allowed me the clearance between the mast and cabin top to pin my mast to the tabernacle at an almost horizontal position with the mast sitting in the mast crutch. Prior to that, I would have had to raise the crutch to obtain this clearance to get the tabernacle pinned.
I can't honestly say that raising the mast step 1-1/8" would make a difference on a 23, 25, or a 26, but it does on my 222 with my stern rail mast crutch set up.
At any rate, the piece of Trex under the tabernacle is permanent and the two pieces of Trex above the tab is only temporary. I tried out the boat the other night on the river in some stiff winds and she sailed beautiful. Right now, I just want to use my boat and I don't care what it looks like at this point as long as it's usable. :dance:

Oday 23 Backstay chainplate

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Attachments

.

.