Over time it appears that my stanchions have angled out on my HUNTER31 instead of pointing straight up. Now I have noticed that they wabble a bit and have caused some gelcoat cracking. It appears to me that there are several areas around the boat where the hull and deck meet that have this issue, and I have found a few dark stains in the deck wall cabin carpet that are probably from leaks at the toe rail. I intent to remove ALL the toerail hardware, look for damage and do whatever repairs are needed. The problem is, I don't know what this should look like or even what should be done. I am told that the deck, liner, and hull all meet here. Last year I did some deck repairs http://chicagosailboatcharters.com/repairs/deckrepairs.htm but I knew what to expect. You know, cut off deck, replace bad wood, reglass, sand, paint, etc, but this has me confused! -Should I grind out any damaged fiverglass or whatever I see there and then fill with epoxy and glass? -Where this all meets is it supposed to move and I should NOT expoxy it? I will keep the website updated with a summary of the repairs I decide to do and how I do them! http://chicagosailboatcharters.com/repairs/toerail.htm Thanks, Marty
Stanchion at toerail moving, deck gelcoat cracking
- Thread starter seitzinger
- Start date
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Overlap
The hull deck joint on your boat is an over lap joint. The deck peice overlaps the hull with a 90 degree turn down. There is a butal chaulk between the two. The metal toerail just fits over this joint and acts as a mechanical fastner to hold the two together. The chaulk joint that you show in your picture is not the weather tight joint between the hull/deck, but was added post factory probably to keep dirt out of the joint between the metal toerail and the deck. There is some information about this in the archives and in the original Hunter manual there is a good cross section of this joint which will make it clear when you see it. I beleive the manuals are posted on this site somewhere under boat info. Go through and tighten all the screws that hold the toerail to the deck this will squeeze the butal chaulk and hopefully seal the joint better. The deck cracks can probably be repaired easily by using a dremel tool to grind out and then re-epoxy. Good luck
The hull deck joint on your boat is an over lap joint. The deck peice overlaps the hull with a 90 degree turn down. There is a butal chaulk between the two. The metal toerail just fits over this joint and acts as a mechanical fastner to hold the two together. The chaulk joint that you show in your picture is not the weather tight joint between the hull/deck, but was added post factory probably to keep dirt out of the joint between the metal toerail and the deck. There is some information about this in the archives and in the original Hunter manual there is a good cross section of this joint which will make it clear when you see it. I beleive the manuals are posted on this site somewhere under boat info. Go through and tighten all the screws that hold the toerail to the deck this will squeeze the butal chaulk and hopefully seal the joint better. The deck cracks can probably be repaired easily by using a dremel tool to grind out and then re-epoxy. Good luck
deck meets hull, flexing issue.
Thanks. We did do the tightening and no benefit to that. I saw the manual where it showed deck, liner and hull meeting. With the amount of flex I get when I put any pressure at all on stanchions I am worried that the deck fiberglass (the area you describe that turns down 90 degrees - at the corner of the down turn) has been trashed. Check out the movie I just included and you can see the flexing. By the way, I did a lot of searching but am not sure what you mean by butal chaulk? Do you mean butyl caulk? Like a sealant, made of some type of butyl compound? Thanks, Marty
Thanks. We did do the tightening and no benefit to that. I saw the manual where it showed deck, liner and hull meeting. With the amount of flex I get when I put any pressure at all on stanchions I am worried that the deck fiberglass (the area you describe that turns down 90 degrees - at the corner of the down turn) has been trashed. Check out the movie I just included and you can see the flexing. By the way, I did a lot of searching but am not sure what you mean by butal chaulk? Do you mean butyl caulk? Like a sealant, made of some type of butyl compound? Thanks, Marty
rail may be bent
If the rail developed a curved bottom overtime because of it being loose, then after you tighten it, it will not have the same holding power it used to. From my understanding, fiberglass doesn't loose it's strength much but if there is a core and the core gets wet, then that will. So if you have core all the way to the end, then you will need to check that out. One thing is for sure, if you tightened the toe rail all the way down and it still have flex like that, then you will need to take it off and inspect the flatness of the rail and core of the deck. I don't have a toe rail on my boat and I have wondered if I should try to put one on, but after hearing about all these toe rail problems, I think I know why Hunter stopped putting them on
Shame too because I like the idea of being able to strap things to the toe rail. As an old salty tells me, you shouldn't be grabbing the lifelines anyway except for an emergency. He says if you continue to use them they will snap on you one day and your not going to like the fall. It's a bad habit I'm trying to get out of.
If the rail developed a curved bottom overtime because of it being loose, then after you tighten it, it will not have the same holding power it used to. From my understanding, fiberglass doesn't loose it's strength much but if there is a core and the core gets wet, then that will. So if you have core all the way to the end, then you will need to check that out. One thing is for sure, if you tightened the toe rail all the way down and it still have flex like that, then you will need to take it off and inspect the flatness of the rail and core of the deck. I don't have a toe rail on my boat and I have wondered if I should try to put one on, but after hearing about all these toe rail problems, I think I know why Hunter stopped putting them on
Shame too because I like the idea of being able to strap things to the toe rail. As an old salty tells me, you shouldn't be grabbing the lifelines anyway except for an emergency. He says if you continue to use them they will snap on you one day and your not going to like the fall. It's a bad habit I'm trying to get out of.- Status