Standing Rigging

[Scott Galloway]

I agree with Ebb on that top bolthole:

The top holes on the upper and aft lower should not have been so close to the top of the plywood bulkheads. The bulkheads were in good shape generally, although I had to take off some water-damaged wood near that top boltholes and a few other places. I added #9 fiberglass cloth and epoxy to the bulkheads as needed and glassed the bulkheads to the overheads with epoxy. I then re-drilled the boltholes. The only place I did not have to add significant epoxy. Cloth was the forward knee.

Re-cutting the slots was a pain, but after the first three holes I got the hang of the process. Two small pilot holes, drilled one at a time near the sides of the former slot hole furthest from the bulkhead in question, followed by drilling two holes slightly smaller than 3/16. I think I used an 11/64 drill. Two jig saw (saber saw) cuts between the holes to create a thin rectangle slot. A thin flat fine file followed by a flat file just under 3/16 width. When the slots were completed and the chainplates dry fitted and temporarily bolted in place, I marked the precise size of the necessary final slots with tape if the slots seemed wider than I wanted. Two of my first three slots were a bit wide.

I then removed all of the plates, backfilled the slots up to the tape line with colloidal silica thickened epoxy where necessary, and check all slots for any voids, or stray pilot drill holes and filled these also. I used a putty knife. One of those West Systems epoxy resin/catalyst packages that come in the six packs was sufficient fort all of the slots. I did find one void a the top of the port forward lower just above the knee where my new slot nicked that void. My goal was to keep any water that might enter those slots from getting to any wood.

Tomorrow, I hope to bed the plates and bolt them securely in place. In the photo below of the port-side bulkhead that secures the rear lower shroud chainplate, you can see that the bulkhead has been epoxied to the underside of the deck. This should both make it stronger and also prevent any water leaking through the chainplate slots from getting to the top of the plywood bulkhead as was once the case.

[Scott Galloway]

Here is the new chainplate both before and after installation.

The bulkhead on both sides has been reinforced with 9 oz glass cloth and epoxy. The reinforced epoxy section fills the space between the top of the bulkhead and the underside of the deck in the area where there is no cabin liner. The bulkhead has been reinforced on both sides for the full length of this chainplate. The white line above the wood grained Formica in the middle photo is a bead of 3M 5200 that I used to replace the old worn out soft gray-green foam trim piece that originally filed the space between the Formica and the cabin liner.

Note that I have increased the size of two of the three washers in the right hand photo. The top washer is the original size. It could not be enlarged because of the proximity of the bolt to the overhead. It was tempting to move the top hole down one inch, but I chose not to do so.

[Scott Galloway]

The photos below show the newly installed 1.5 inch wide X 3/16-inch thick chainplates #316 stainless steel, polished with mirror finish from top to second hole. These photos show chainplates before deck paint (beige) and gelcoat (white) touch-up and installation of #316 stainless cover plates. Chainplates are bedded in 3M 5200. Covers will be bedded with polysulfide. The original bronze chainplates were 1.25 inches wide X 3/16 inch thick. The partially decomposed deck core adjacent to the chainplate slots and screw holes was removed with progressively larger bent nails in a hand power drill. The debris was then vacuumed from the slot.

The bottom of the slots was plugged from below with West Systems epoxy thickened with colloidal silica. Twenty-four hours later, unthickened epoxy was injected into the slot and into the (now core-less) screw holes and this was followed by forcing colloidal silica-thickened West Systems epoxy into the three holes ( slot and two screw holes) until it began to come out of the others. I used a putty knife, a squeegee to force the epoxy into the slot and screw holes, and pushed the epoxy down and out into the core with probing tools. The squeegee allowed me to force epoxy through all three holes simulataneously. The putty knife permitted me to foce epoxy in one hole at a time.

I then cut the new slots by drilling two pilot holes and then after ensuring that the holes were where I wanted them, I increasing the bit size to slightly less than 3/16 inch. Checking the location of the holes as I went was critical because some of my original chainplates had bends in them and because I reinforced the plywood bulkheads with 9 oz cloth and epoxy.

I then cut a narrow rectangular slot between the two drill holes. Finally, I used one narrow and one wider flat file to enlarge the slot for the new chainplates. When the slots were complete, I dry fitted the chainplates and bolted them in place. I then inspected each slot. I found one void at the top of the port forward lower knee, which was left by the manufacturer. I filled this void with thickened epoxy. I then adjusted the slot width by marking the precise slot width that I wanted with masking tape, removing the chainplates and backfilling the slots with thickend epoxy to the border of the tape. A small amount of file work was required the next day before bedding the plates. My objective was to align the new slots perfectly with the bulkheads/knees so that the chainplates fit flat against them with out having to bend the plates. The only significant problem that I encountered was with the port forward lower plate, which bolts to a knee that was at a wacky angle. This was not he case on the starboard forward lower knee.

My original chainplates did not conform to the drawing in the Ariel Association's manual. Mine were were longer. The holes were in similar, but not precise locations from chainplate to chainplate, so each chainplate had to be drilled separately. The originals were not all exactly the same length. Dry-fitting is a must. Which side of the new chainplates faced forward made a difference when matching the holes in the bulkheads. In some cases, the three holes were in alignment, but the line was not the centerline of the chainplate. In other cases one of the three holes was out of alignment. The differences were slight, but significant, because I was using the original bolt holes in the bulkheads and knees.

[ebb]

To everything there is a reason
And a time for every purpose,
A time to buildup, a time to break down.

Articles posted in #1 and #4, especially #1 with its great photos, should be absorbed by anyone contemplating refit.

300 series stainless steel depends on free oxygen reacting with the chromium content in alloy to create its surface protection. Scratch that thin oxide layer or deprive it of ambient oxygen and it will begin to break down. Whether it's the shaft in a cutlass bearing under water. a screw or bolt head, a chainplate against the hull or buried in the deck. Chainplates, unlike chocks or cleats, are continually worked, tweaked, stressed and so forth.

316 is 304 with a little molybdenum added to the nickel and chromium that makes it about twice as resistant. That's a good thing because 304 doesn't belong on any boat in a saltwater environment.

Stainless must be passivated to remove the tinyest iron particles (something you can do yourself) and be buffed absolutely smooth. If I had to use stainless strap or bar I would look for it under the names Aquamet and Nitronic - higher up in the 300 range. This stuff is used for shafts and rod rigging. There are hundreds, well, dozens of stainless steels - some claim to be highly if not completely resistant to corrosion. But not having researched it, don't know if they can be used like bronze is in our application.

There is good reason to use (the correct) bronze for refitting chainplates on the A/Cs.

[Scott Galloway]

Well Ebb,

The articles and photos are quite good. They present the "stainless horror hour" when it comes to chainplate failure. The photos of my original chainplates demonstrate why it may be wise to take a look at the bronze chainplates on your forty-year-old boat, and particularly the bolts that secure them.

I checked with five different fabrication shops, four of which make metal parts exclusively for the marine industry. Two of those fabricators are well known west coast manufacturers. They all make stainless steel chainplates. Some recommend 316 (to prevent corrosion) and some 304 (for strength). They mostly shook their heads when I said that I preferred bronze. It all depends upon how much you want to spend. If you want bronze and your supplier has to special order it, then you are going to buy who strap, bar or whatever.

Although bronze may be preferable, it is not as strong as stainless steel, and having bronze chainplates on ones forty-year-old boat is not an assurance of safety.

1. Bronze thru-hulls can and do fail due to corrosion. Some of those failures are documented on this forum. A number of cruising sailors have related spooky bronze thru-hull failure stories to me.
2. The heads of my bronze gudgeon bolts snapped off when I removed the gudgeon to drop the rudder this summer.
3. Bronze rudder shafts eventually turn to red mush in salt water.
4. Even in the relatively dry environment of the main bulkhead on my boat, which showed no signs of water intrusion below the top bolthole on the starboard side, my bronze chainplate bolts were pretty much shot. See photos above.
5. My bronze chainplates were mostly red metal beneath the green verdigris coating of corroded bronze See photo above.

Personally, I like the idea of chainplates mounted to the exterior of the hull, despite the impact on sailing performance as discussed elsewhere on this forum. It seems a worthy idea, since at least one side of the chainplates can be inspected without removing them. My father’s boat, which was a 22,000 lb heavy displacement cutter, had such chainplates. They were stainless steel. In the twenty-two years that he owned the boat, we never observed any corrosion or any other indication for chainplate failure.

At least on my boat, the chainplate slots are now solid epoxy. There is no longer a wood deck core to hold moisture against the chainplates.

[ebb]

Scott,
Looks to me like you did a real nice refit of those s.s. chainplates of yours.
Differences of opinion is what cooks this web site, I wish there was more of it.
There is no way anyone can predict the longevity of a particular installation except by the experiences of others. I am obviously a bronze guy. And maybe the reason for that is that bronze is more romantic than stainless.

Nevertheless, those dinky bronze plates that the factory put in my Ariel lasted 5 decades. Even so, I believe they used a questionable alloy. The installation was bound to leak and the bolts were probably a different alloy therefor exacerbating corrosion. Don't know, never had tests done, so it's all bs. Everything I can find out about stainless, though, makes it a much more dicey, less forgiving alloy than copper.

[Tony G]

Could it be that you're both right? Perhaps chainplate replacement is something we're just going to have to face every thirty, fourty or fifty years? I can live with that.

Everything from alligning the knees with the 'pull' of the rigging to oversizing and switching to stronger materials is a worthwhile improvement to these great little boats. I think that given the quality to the materials available to us these days, the fact that we are striving to accertain a level of craftsmanship in our repairs/rebuilds exceeding mediocre, and a far better understanding of the longterm effects on, or expectations of, the new systems we incorporate into our boats, just widens the gap of allowable margin of error.

Even with our oversights our boats are better than they ever were. Don't get me wrong. I'm not suggesting some sort of snobish, elitest distinction between original Ariels/Commanders and rebuilds or remodels. I'm just saying that any improvement is an improvement.

[Bill]

Scott, you note that "Bronze rudder shafts eventually turn to red mush in salt water." IMHO, proper zincing should take care of that problem. Ditto for failing bronze through hulls. It's the electrical current . . .

[ebb]

Tony,
Bronze plates won't just suddenly let go like stainless.
No way will stainless last 45 years. Prove it!


Bronze is a metal of nobility.
Stainless is a metal of utility.

[ebb]

Bronze is a metal of ability
Stainless is a metal of futility.


Besides Ariels and Commanders ARE bronze fitted boats.
I won.

[Scott Galloway]

To: All

If you are talking the right bronze in the right places, I am a bronze guy also. Just knowing that my rudder shaft has lasted 39 years thus far and that my chainplates lasted 39 years and probably would have lasted much longer if I had not removed them to repair the deck delamination in the chainplate area and repair the bulkheads where the upper and aft lower shrouds are attached. Once removed, the evident corrosion in the bolts and the overall condition of the plates plus "expert" opinion dictated replacement, but they probably would have lasted a few more years if new bronze bolts were inserted.

I have personally lost two rudders at sea, one on a Catalina 22 due to a failed weld on one of the pintels on a transom mounted rudder, and the other a catastrophic failure of the very substantial spade rudder shaft on a Cal 25. Corrosion and metal fatigue were factors in both cases. I don't know the alloy, but both of those rudder parts were stainless steel. The Catalina parts were less than ten years old.

However, there is a very big difference to what someone might do who is basically redesigning a boat from the keel up like Ebb and some others on this forum are doing, and someone who is merely replacing a single system as part of periodic maintenance between sails or performing accident repair on a budget as in my case.

In my case, I am trying to deal with what is turning out to be very expensive accident repair, and the chainplate project was just an added uninsured cost, as were the thru-hulls that I had to replace, the rudder repairs, blister repairs, yard costs, and the replacement of the electrical wire and coaxial cable in the mast. I was actually planning to sail regularly over the past three months rather than spending hour upon hour on boat repairs.

So, I was striving not to impose my ideology on the marine industry, but instead to work with real-life credible suppliers whom I could reasonably enlist to build a set of chainplates within a three-week time frame. I was looking for a relatively reasonably priced, but professionally recommended solution to replacing my chainplates. After consulting five fabrication shops, and in addition consulting two professionals, the latter of whom had no economic interest in this part of my project, I found seven recommendations that I use stainless steel. One of those shops in the SF Bay area has already built ss chainplates for Ariels, and recommended 316 stainless, but they were backlogged with work.

So, I personally feel that bonze should probably be the metal of choice under water or where crevice corrosion is a factor, I also feel that owners should understand that even bronze will fail, and that if their local yard or fabrication shop tells them to go with stainless, that recommendation is indeed the conventional wisdom of industry professionals, and not an aberration.

As we have discussed on other threads, the conventional wisdom of industry professionals also gave us inline valves instead of flanged sea cocks, faster boats with less ultimate stability that knock down without lots of rail meat, and a whole host of other ideas that we Ariel/Commander sailors believe to be "bad ideas".

I believe in zincs Bill, but let's face it: In some of our "hot marinas", our moored boats are little more than giant batteries, with or without zincs. Conventional wisdom again says out of one side of its mouth "You should bond all below water bronze," and out of the other side of its mouth, "Don't bond isolated bronze thru-hulls." My original thru-hulls were isolated, and unbonded and 100% AOK after forty years (OK so two were probably replaced sometime in the 1970s or 1980s). My new cockpit thru-hulls are Grocco, with Grocco flanged all-bronze seacocks. That cost me extra, but having the all bonze seacocks and thru-hulls was a priority for me. By the way, Grocco recommends that all thru-hulls/seacocks be bonded.

We may all vow to maintain our zincs, but how can we account for or make up for the deferred maintenance of prior owners? We can’t, and many of us purchased boats with deferred maintenance. The first things to go are the haul-outs, zinc replacement etc.

So my point is that we need to have realistic expectations for the original equipment installed in our Ariels and Commanders. A surveyor who inspected my boat thumped on a couple of places on my already-sanded hull and pronounced that I would not find any blisters on my ancient hull. In my opinion that thinking was based on myth perpetuated by some of my maritime literary heroes, but teh surveyor seemed satisfied. In that same haul-out, I repaired two blisters, each the size of a fist, one shallow and one deep. The deep one took five layers of 10 oz cloth and epoxy.

Does a similar level of faith in the construction skills of the ancient Pearsonians lead us accept myths that bronze lasts forever, that our hulls are thicker than they really are, or that we actually have any mechanical fasteners holdign deck and hull together in our hull deck seam?

One final question: When was the last time that you removed and examined one of your chainplates? You can do that with the rig up one plate at a time.

My personal answer to that question is: “Had I not had my mast down for accident repair, I would not have removed the chainplates…well not this year anyway." But checking our chainplates once every forty years by removign at least one of them is probably not wise based on what I discovered when I removed mine, and particulalry so in light of the deck section in the chainplate area. Zincs may prevent or slow future corrosion on our boats, but a zinc-less past under a prior owner could make a zinkable future.

[ebb]

Scott,
Let us amend that Screech toast of another thread to:

"May your big jib keep drawing and your chainplates last forty years."
Lift my glass of Moylans to a great job - and your exploits as a raildown offshore skipper!!!

As for copper alloy. Recall that 5300 year old guy they found shot in the back in the Alps? His axe hardly had any patina on it. Now, if it had been stainless steel......



I think, please research it!, current thinking with hot marinas in mind is NOT to bond your underwater fittings together into an electric circuit. Asking for trouble. Recomendations now are to independantly zinc each fitting, or not to zinc at all. As you know, IMCO, gunmetal used for casting thruhulls and seacocks is no longer good enough. Obviously it depends on where the boat is berthed or anchored. Ebb and his bronze, he's going with nylon.

[Scott Galloway]

Ebb,

No metal is maintenance free. As we now know, neither is fiberglass, and many plastics become brittle over time. I am not sure how long those Nylon thru-hulls last. Avoiding corrosion problems makes them attractive though. This issue is no human made material is maintenance free.

One final thought in your search for metalic perfection: If stainless steel is a concern wherever crevice corrosion might occur, please keep in mind that crevice corrosion is very possible and often encountered on standing rigging, wherever steel wire disappears into a swage or fitting. Lots of salt water, and no oxygen = crevice corrosion. So are you going go with bronze wire rigging, or...

Now carbon fiber rod rigging. There's an idea. I wonder of 5300 years from now archeologists will pry a plastic-age skier from the hard Alpine ground along with a fully functional pair of epoxy skis, carbon fiber ski poles, and and a Chocolate Cookie Supreme Cliff Bar still edible in its plastic wrapper. Too bad about those stainless steel bindings of his though.

[Ted]

Great discussion -- every time I open my locker or lazarette I wonder about those plates. The obvious next step for the association is to get a head count and make up a bunch so those of us too lazy to pull them and have them made can order a set. That will force me to action!

Ted

[Scott Galloway]

Ted,

The only three problems with a group chainplate order are:

1. Not all Ariels were built with the same chainplates. My bronze chainplates, although probably original, were not identical to those in the Ariel Association Maintenance manual.

2. Not all chainplates on a single Ariel were built identically. Each new chainplate built for my boat had to be drilled separately since the three bottom holes were not drilled uniformly, or even always drilled in a straight line. THius made for a very expensive set of plates.

3. Pin size may vary based on whether your boat has been re-rigged in its forty-year life. My upper shroud pins turn out to be a different size than the 3/8 pins used elsewhere. Unfortunately the holes in my original chainplates were all over-drilled size-wise. This is the same on the backstay plate made for me in 2002 by a professional igger, and the original stem fitting holes for the forestay. They were neither 3/8 nor 7/16 inch and furthermore, the rigging component that works with my upper shroud chainplate does not come with a 3/8 pin apparently.

So whether you go with bronze or 316 stainless steel, my advice after my recent experience is:

a. Remove the chainplates, and inspect them. If they need to be replaced, use the same hole spacing, assuming your bulkheads and knees are solid, but if possible add one more hole to give you four locations per chainplate to bolt through a bulkhead or knee. You are going to have to measure this carefully before you do it. Remember anything you do to add material to the side of a bulkhead or knee against which the chainplate rests will cause the chainplate top move forward away from the original chainplate slot. This could have other ramifications. From the bends in some of my original chainplates, it is apparent that the original chainplate slots were not always in line with the forward face of the bulkheads and knees, as one would presume to be prudent for correct placement of chainplates, so your new chainplates may move somewhat in any case, unless you intend to bend them.

b. The open top edge of the plywood bulkheads is exposed. Cap it with epoxy and, if possible add some cloth and tie that bulkhead into the deck. One objective is to seal the bulkhead to prevent water intrusion, and another is to correct, to a limited degree, for the very close proximity of the top bolt to the top edge of the bulkhead.

c. While the chainplates are off the boat, clean out the delaminated deck core in the area of the chainplates and fill it and the chainplate cover plate screw hole areas with epoxy, so any future leaks will not run into the core.

d. If you are having new plates made, identify each removed chainplate as port aft lower, port upper, port forward lower etc. and mark the plates accordingly and redundantly with marker pen and lettering on tape. Verify your pin size on all six shrouds, and your bolt size also. Take the pins and bolts with you to the fabrication shop so that they won't have to guess pin or bolt size from what might be oversized or friction-elongated or stress elongated, or sloppily drilled holes. Make sure that the understand that each of your plates may be slightly doffeent (if indeed they are)

e. Put your order in writing, and/or ask for a written order with your specifications printed thereupon. This exercise will ensure that you have told your fabrication shop all that they need to know and that you and they have a record of that conversation.

Note: I actually ordered a set of 316 chainplates 3/16 of an inch thick from one source, and the specifications were written on the order, but the plates they made were less than 3/16 inch. As it later turned out they did not have 3/16 inch steel, but they made and deliveed them anyway. I did not install those chainplates. Instead I ordered my chainplates from a different source.

I discovered later that the upper shroud used a different sized pin. You really want to closely match your pins to the chainplate holes to avoid problems caused by point loading when your pin is too small for the hole. In other words, a very small pin will engage only one small point on the hole transferring all stress to that single point as opposed to spreading the load over the top half of the hole.

If you have a small pin in a big hole you can bush the hole to the correct diameter (with a bushing), but good luck finding the correctly sized bushing. If you have to make soem bushigns they will be expensive, and there are limits to what can be made.

Does all of this pin size vs. hole size stuff really make a difference on a small boat like an Ariel or Commander? Can't say that I know, but if you have a chance to do something correctly, you might as well take the time to do it correctly since it will not cost you any more momey or time to do it correctly, and you wil sleep better after you do to it correctly.

However, my boat seems to have sailed around in all sorts of conditions for nearly forty years with pins smaller than their respective chainplate holes, and was none the worse for the wear. The chainplates were tired, but had not failed. The top holes were on some plates elongated, but that appeared to be wear and not stress caused hole elongation.