Stern hardware acess

[Tomasan1018]

I recently have purchased a 21 year old Mac 25. It pretty good shape, but having an issue w/ the main-sheet jam-cleat. I can only assume this is the original cleat, mounted in the left rear corner, about a foot forward of the back stern plane. 3 bolts, all 3 loose. I want to tighten them, or replace / upgrade the cleat. I can see with a flashlight the bottom backing plate & the 3 loose bolts. But how do you get to it? A person can't fit down the left side of the boat to reach the bolts. Only way I can see is to remove the wood panel, in the rear of the right hatch that is accessible from the cockpit. Lots of pieces of floatation foam to remove. I'm 6' tall, 180 lbs; I’m pretty sure I won’t fit down & under, between the boat bottom & the cockpit depression. Do I have to find a small child that can handle a tool, isn't claustrophobic?

 

[Dan McGuire]

I'm Bigger than You

I had a 21. I removed and replaced pretty much everything in the stern. I crawled back under the cockpit seats. I also worked through the hatch. You have to remove the styrofoam blocks.

 

[Dave]

"you can doooooo,,,it"

From my experience, it looks very, very small, but actually there is room inside of that big black hole at the stern. The problem is access, you should go from the inside of the cabin, if on the starboard (right) side looking aft you have a full bulkhead, you will need to remove it, if you only have the top half like my 25', you are set, it takes 10 times longer to remove all of the foam floatation blocks than it does to do the work, but once they are out of your way, there is suprisingly enough room to wiggle aft, turn port at the aft of the hull, and access the left (port) inside rail from the bottom side. Even your size shouldnt be a problem as long as your not clostorphobic. Really it just is a matter of getting the foam blocks out of the way, and hey, dont forget to put them back, its what will keep the boat from sinking. Below is a link that has one or two shots of the inside of my cabin looking aft. Dave

 

[vwjon]

make sure

you have a helper outside to hold the other end of the bolt. You won't want to crawl back there more times than you have too. Take a handfull of wrenches and snug up everything (motor mount cleats etc) that you see down there.

 

[Bob]

Amen

The others are all right on. I'm 5-11 and 235# and I wiggled in there to do the same thing right after I bought mine this past summer. I made two trips because the backing was rotted plywood. I replaced the backing for both the main and the cleat just ahead of it with aluminum from an old street sign.

 

[Tomasan1018]

Thanks for the info. guys; I'll squeeze myself in to tighten the hardware. It's Nov. now, boat is put away for the winter; I'll go "boat splunking" in the spring. Might even upgrade the jam-cleat. Ciao