Back stay chain plates

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that my back stay chain plates or lack of them was a problem. What had happened was that a previous owner had drilled through the upper molding and fitted 8M eye bolts without backing plates or chain plates. The result was that the eye bolts pulled through the coaming and the gel coat had disintegrated in the area.

To get round this my new owner tried several methods of reinforcing the fabric to mixed effect. The fool tried fibre-glassing through the inspection hatch. Dripped resin all over the stern sheets, made the wood doubler too big for the hole, lost a fibre glass matt into the engine area and generally made things worse. Next attempt was to put in stainless plates inside and out to spread the stress. Unfortunately the only sensible place to locate the eye bolts meant that the triangular plates had to mounted upsidedown. Hardly a good outcome.

Final attempt, at least the last one to date, was to fit 9" plates through the rubbing strake and into the lower moulding. This seemed to do the trick.

 So far so good, much stronger and I can now apply some tension to the back stays when sailing upwind.

Next job is to try and sound proof the engine room. Photos might be a bit more difficult as The Fool doesn't seem too good with a camera.