Storm Damage - Mooring cleat pulled out - Advice wanted.

[stewart kinsman]

My Beneteau 44cc was damaged in the storm which hit the Marmaris/Fethiye area of Turkey in mid-January. The forward starboard mooring cleat pulled clean out of the hull leaving a 2" deep hole in the glass fibre. There does not seem to be much colateral damage to surrounding areas and the cleat (which was lost overboard) does not appear to have had much of a backing plate - perhaps 2 small washers.
Luckily, the Marina saff (Ece Saray Marina, in Fethiye) were on hand to retether the boat.
Does anyone have any experience of this happening on a Beneteau? And, if so, can anyone advise on the sequence of repairs to give the new cleat a proper backing plate?
Any help with this would be much appreciated.

Stewart H Kinsman.

 

[Ron20324]

To me, "proper backing plate" means putting in as big a plate as you can fit in. At the very minimum, what we call fender washers would be an improvemnt over "small washers". I put two side-deck cleats on my boat using 3/8 x 4x8 backing plates. Since the underside of the deck is uneven I lathered the top of the plates with the epoxy with the glass fibers to make sure they had full contact with the deck. Beneteau has the Syselios parts ordering site, and you can probably find an exact cleat replacement.

That's a deep hole to just fill with any compound. I'd make a number of small glass cloth pieces and put them in layer by layer, though without seeing the damage it's hard make a specific suggestion.