Trouble with stem piece

[Peter Brennan]

This problem may apply to other O'Day models. The stem piece is a large aluminum casting to which is attached the forestay and the anchor roller. The forestay is connected to a pin in the casting that runs across the casting. The casting is held to the boat by a stainless steel strap with three bolts on top and four down the bow of the boat plus another five bolts over the area of the casting. The bolts are capped with nuts inside the boat in a location that is literally impossible to get into. How they built the thing in the first place is beyond me. Oh yeah, the pin is stainless which goes through a close-fitting hole in the aluminum casting.My casting is slowly tearing apart -- well, it was slowly but it got to the point last season that we stopped setting sails. I can't reach the nuts under the deck to remove the casting. We drilled out the three bolts that held down the stainless strap, which is actually the chainplate. I bent the strap so it aligns with the forestay, drilled one of the holes to take the clevis pin and now have the forestay directly connected to the chainplate in just the same manner as is the backstay. The stempiece is out of the loop except for anchor handling. We found that the casting wasn't just shearing, it was broken so that the forestay was connected to the boat by half a cantilevered pin.Questions have been raised about relying solely on the chainplate/strap to control the forestay. If it's good enough for the backstay why not the forestay? The concern is side loading.Has anyone else encountered these problems? Any comments?

 

[RAD]

Peter,

It just dawned on me that we talked about this while I was away on vacation in Dec.and then you went away sorry I forgot to get back to youBut I'm looking at your problem and my stem piece is just the flat steel like you talk about connected to a stemhead fitting, soooooo if you remove that alum. anchor roller and maybe install a standard fitting like most sailboats have.I'm going to check my setup tommorowHave you called Rudy at D&R? can yours be removed and repaired or rebuilt? I have access to a 50 yr. expr.welder who is also a sailorBTWtake a halyard and bring it forward to a cleat and take the load off the furler then remove the furler and secure it to the bow rail out of the way and try and get that alum. piece off

 

[Peter Brennan]

Just what I wanted to hear

Rad,Is yours the 32 with the wooden bowsprit/stempiece? If it is, I have a photo of your work and noticed the tang just sticking up there to secure the forestay.Getting the forestay out of the stempiece and its frozen-in pin was half the battle. What sort of design mates aluminum with stainless steel in a saltwater environment? We broke a lot of saw blades, cutoff wheels and the like.Now that I have the tang aligned with the forestay, which it was not on the original setup, and your experience with it, I see no reason to get rid of the stempiece. It will still manage the anchor and will be very lightly loaded. I have the clevis at the second hole now but I am going to move it down to the first hole which almost aligns the clevis with the deck and leaves little room for lateral stress.By the way, all that MarineTex in the photo was not an attempt at a fix but a means to see how the crack was progressing.

 

[Peter Brennan]

P.S.

The only way to get that stempiece off is to drill out the bolts. There is just no way to access the nuts under the deck.

 

[Shoaldrafter]

Peter's Broken Stem and replacing parts

Peter,See link about a metal fabricator who when his aluminum motor mount/lift broke, he fabricated a completely new motor mount lift in stainless steel. If you need any parts fabricated or the whole thing remade in Stainless you might contact him. Tell him that I referred you so that he knows where you are coming from. Ed K26

 

[RAD]

Peter,

The best place for that broken piece of alum. is where it's now and when you cut the rest off send it to the same place so it can keep its other half companyNow off to the important stuff, did you call Rudy at D&R marine? I'll bet he has a standard stem piece that you can bolt to the deck and your existing chain plate or even better maybe he has the same alum. hardware, then go buy a standard anchor roller like Free Spirit has and bolt that to the deck and go sailing!BTW I have the orignal chocks that I took off my boat and you can have them.

 

[Peter Brennan]

Thanks, guys

for all your comments and recommendations. I am awaiting a quote on a SS316 channel, which I suspect will be a whole lot less than the cost of a made-up anchor roller which wouldn't work anyway. A little carving with a cutoff wheel and drilling and we will have a made to suit homemade anchor roller. Our constraint is that we cannot get at the underside of the first 18" of the foredeck. The new anchor roller setup has to be 32" long and can only be secured from under the deck in its last twenty inches or so. A single lag bolt set in epoxy far forward should manage lateral forces.Thanks too, RAD, for the offer of chocks. The present ones are set into the busted up aluminum casting. What is the shape of your anchor locker under the deck?I can see we are going to have a fun time comparing things at the next rOnDAYvous.

 

[Peter Brennan]

I see why no problem

You have a stainless steel anchor roller. No cast aluminum.What is the shape of your anchor locker under the deck?

 

[RAD]

Peter,

Look what I found!http://www.drmarine.com/proddetail.asp?prod=O34%2D150

 

[Peter Brennan]

That's beautiful

But I just don't have $1,395 available at the moment. Why didn't O'Day do it that way in the first place? And the problem with removal and installation remains. It is absolutely impossible to access the nuts on the bolts on the underside of the deck. The reason for that is because the anchor locker space beneath the deck extends right up to the aftmost part of the plate leaving no room at all to get a cat in there let alone a human arm with a tool. I am working on a solution that gives me a new anchor roller and also preserves my chocks. Staye tuned.

 

[Régis]

Correction!

I said shaft anchor, but I wanted to say anchor locker.

 

[Peter Brennan]

Problem solved

I have a new home-made anchor roller. I don't yet have a photo. I bought a three foot section of aluminum channel, used a cutoff wheel to cut a three inch wide piece out of the existing casting, cut a section out of one end of the channel and fitted a roller there, then bolted the thing to the deck with nuts and backup plates under the deck inside the anchor locker itself. Two parts of the original casting, which contain the chocks, remain. I did not have to drill out the fasteners or otherwise mangle the bow. But now the @$*^$@!*()#$@! windlass quit.