New Deck Fitting

Mickey Mouse and Mighty Mouse

Minnie Mouse

New Arrival

Dive Class at the Jetty

This morning I picked up the deck fitting for the inner forestay that Tallero Naval had manufactured to my specifications, and I must say that I am extremely pleased with the result.  While I was waiting for the man who would present me with the account I placed the pieces against the 1:1 plane and side views of the drawings to which they had worked.  Even though I had waved my hand over the drawing and said “mas o meno” (more or less) to give the shop room to move in the manufacture, the pieces fitted exactly over the plans: the thicknesses were exact, the hole diameters and locations were exact, and he edges were chamfered (beveled) as specified.

The young man attending to me spoke pretty good English.  He presented me with the account of 700.  “US dollars?” I asked.  He laughed and said “No, pesos.”  That made the charge equivalent to $140 Aussie dollars.  I can easily pay more than that for polished s/s steel fittings at  boat shop.  My nose had been correct: No sharks in that place, just good honest work.

The photo shows the new fittings on the deck behind the Mickey Mouse 9 mm U-bolt arrangement that will be replaced.  The front piece will replace the U-bolt.   Besides the increased strength there is the improvement of  now having two attachment points, the fore one for the headstay and the aft one for the sail, whereas before I had to make both attachments to the one U-bolt.  The second piece at the rear will be inverted and fitted below the deck.  To the “U” attachment will be fitted the wire and turnbuckle designed to hold the deck down when thee is an upward pull  from the stay.  The second photo shows the lower “Minnie Mouse” fitting at present.

I cannot for the life of me understand why the manufacturer of the boat mounted such a weak fitting when me made just about everything on this boat so strong.   And I wonder how the previous owners of this boat fared with it.  I figure that they either did not use the staysail much or were happy to stoically keep replacing the U-bolts.

I look forward with great pleasure to mounting the new fittings, as soon as I've prepared with four suitable bolts and appropriate sealant (which I think that I have in stock).  I'm pretty sure that I'll be able to borrow an electric drill from perhaps the marina.  Otherwise I'll purchase a new drill in the knowledge that I'll be able to use it in Australia.

P.S.  I pawed through my supply of nuts and bolts and found four suitable sets complete with washers and Nyloc nuts.  The bolts are 9mm in diameter, the same as the present U-bolt fitting.  However, there will be 4 bolts and more important, the load on the bolts will be a straight pull rather than the destructive side-to-side flexing on the U-bolt fitting. If anything, the bolts are too long, but that is good because I am not sure of the thickness of  the deck at that location.  The bolts will come through far enough forward in the forecastle to prevent splitting my scalp open by one of them.  Later I can either swap out the bolts or more likely trim them off with a Dremmel tool.  Also, I located two unopened tubes of Sikaflex 291 sealant and one unopened tube of 3M 5200 sealant (white).  The Sikaflex is pretty old but the 3M 5200 is fairly new.  So it looks like I'm good to go with the fitting.