More P40 Chainplate Woes

[Jim Henerberry]

Hello Group,

Since my 1987, Passport 40, Hull #123 had not been sailed very hard by the previous owner, I have escaped that terrible feeling of seeing the deck bulge and watching the knee pull away from the hull little by little.  That was until this past week while on my honeymoon trip to Provincetown, MA from my home port of Salem.  Yes, while my new wife has little sailing experience, she has great spirit and enthusiastic desire for the adventures that lie ahead, even after experiencing seasickness on both the outbound and return legs of our honeymoon trip.

But I digress.  Back to the chainplates and knees.  The main issue is on the port side which had suffered significant leaking over many years resulting in most of the plywood inside the knee turning into mush.  I did my best to remedy this with copious amounts of GitRot and West System SixTen shot into it.  The leaking over the years was so bad that all the wood in the aft hanging locker (I have the Pullman configuration with dual hanging lockers opposite) pulled away like moist newspaper.

Upon our return leg most of which was under power because I was concerned about doing more damage to the deck and during which the Autohelm underdeck linear drive unit starting started making noise and tripping the breaker (dismantling the unit revealed the need for a new motor, now on order, $400) I removed the chainplates and all that beautiful butyl tape that had finally stopped the leaks.  I now have a come-along rigged from a strong hook in a wiring hole low down in the main bulkhead to the chainplate deck holes (see pics) under massive pressure to pull the deck back down. 

My plan right now is to remove the old knees (I'll be doing both sides) and install new STRAIGHT chainplates.  Schaefer Marine has a stock chainplate part #84-91 that is 16" long with 5/8" pin hole and five 1/2" mounting holes.  The cost from Rigging Only in Fairhaven, MA is $162.62 each.  The covers for these are part #84-57 and cost $16.89 each for a total cost of $718.04.  I'm choosing the straight chainplates because of all the discussion of the stresses on the angle of the "hockey stick" shaped originals.  On top of that, my intention is to build up layers of marine plywood on the main bulkhead and both epoxy the layers to the bulkhead and to each other to create essentially one huge mass of resin and plywood that will be through bolted to the bulkhead.  I will have bolt heads showing in the main salon, but to me that is unimportant when compared to keeping my mast up and straight when at sea.  I am lucky to have Boulter Plywood nearby in Somerville, MA who deals in high quality marine plywood (no gaps).  I was considering using G10 fiberglass sheets, but for the thickness I'll need the price gets a little crazy!!

I have not yet decided whether I will cut the plywood layers to be big enough to fill the whole gap to the hull and then use West System SixTen to fill the gap and "attach" the new structure to the hull for a little additional support.  I will butt the plywood layers up against the underside of the deck and fill that gap with SixTen.  Most likely I will go big to maximize surface area on the bulkhead.

I welcome any feedback on my plan as the collective wisdom gathered here might save me a great deal of time and dollars.

Thanks,

Jim

P40, #123, Lottie B

[Jim Henerberry]

In reading over my post in the daily digest, I notice that I said the knee which is breaking free is on the port side.  In reality it's the starboard side where the hanging locker actually is.

[CAZ]

Jim,

I did not have (lifting of deck) issue. However, I did rework the wood in the stbd knee that you describe while replacing the chain plates. The knee was mush. I ended up cutting out the leading edge of fiberglass and removing all the wooden mush. Replaced the wood with a fully encapsulated marine plywood panel. Re-glassed the leading edge. It will never rot again. The original dog leg chain plates were problematic because the dog leg bend was likely created under heat which weakened the plate. I cut my new plate shape out of flat stock 316SS - no bending required.

Question: will you have enough room to use 16' long straight chain plates with out a dog leg?

Bill Caz.

s/v 1984 P40, Beau Navire    

[psherwood]

My chainplate problem manifested itself mostly on the port side, just
forward of the bulkhead (aft end of the pullman berth). I had new
chainplates water-jet cut from a piece of 316L stainless and had the
holes water-jet drilled. That way, the hockey-stick shape could be
copied exactly, with no heating and bending or welding. The original
chainplates were of inferior quality metal and had obviously been heated
-- can't remember if they were welded or bent.

It wasn't all that expensive (ten years ago), a couple hundred bucks for
a piece of stainless from which all the chainplates could be cut, and
less than $150 for all the water jet work. I didn't dig out the backstay
chainplate but rather had the new one bent to the correct angle and
installed it on the exterior of the transom, using the original bolt
holes. Had to notch the cap rail. Looks and works fine.

To what would you mount straight chainplates? Bigger knees? Otherwise,
won't you have to rotate the chainplates 90 degrees? I'm not imagining
how straight chainplates would fit (am not on my boat).

I think Kirk on Due West did a big chainplate rebuild project, replacing
them all with bigger, burlier ones. Check this list's archives for his
writeup. If you can't find it (and if Kirk doesn't see this), I might
have it somewhere and will look for it.

Phil
s/v Cynosure
Seattle / San Carlos

> P40, #123, *Lottie B*
>

[Rob Raymond]

I'm trying to imagine how you would fit a straight chain plate in a Passport 40, and I can't see it fitting.

The problem with the original chain plates is the poor quality stainless they were manufactured from, not the shape. Ours had small stress cracks all through them. We also had new chain plates water jet cut, from 3/8" instead of the original 5/16", as well as new cover plates to match.

I'm wondering how G10 instead of plywood as a filler in the knees would work. It would be a bitch to drill, but you'd never have to worry about rot again.

Rob

[Alcoop]

I have hull #124.I had the problem on the port side and replaced both side. The chain plates were examined by a metal shop and declared good so i wold have yours looked at before discarding them and the builders made up grades as the production went on. After re-glassing the knee which was also in good condition a block of wood to fill the gap between the knee and bulk head was inserted and then all was through bolted as you describe. the visible bolts sit behind my speakers. The biggest job is replacing the hull coverings but again most of it is in lockers.

Also my bad did not have a rod holding the deck down from flexing so I added one in the mast locker

Allen

S/V Krissy 

[View[+]Finder]

Chain plate bolts through bulkhead fixed the problem on View[+]Finder. Added a custom fitted, glassed in filler block for super strength. Over-sized the bolts as well.

Donal

View[+]Finder

Donal B. Botkin

--
--
Passport Owners Association http://passportyachts.org
To post to the group, use "reply all" or send email to Passpor...@googlegroups.com
To reply to just the author, just use "reply:
For more options, go to
http://groups.google.com/group/PassportOwners?hl=en
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Passport Owners" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to PassportOwner...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[Matthew Davidson]

Jim

I have done extensive repairs on Wildflower. Thankfully our Knees had been replaced with very burly bigger ones. You can do this... Just take your time and it will all work out. Thanks to Rob Raymond I learned the deck penetrations need to have a G-10FR 3/8" raised foot on deck before remounting the cover plate. This will force water on deck to run around this point instead of up against the caulked penetration. Lots of P40's have done this. Do this on all your penetrations. It will stop leaks.

 

I am in the process of putting raised Genoa Sail Track on deck with 3/8" G-10FR. See the attached PDF. I found more leaking along the track. Some rot in the Aft Cabin Locker. Since we are repainting the entire deck and putting down new non-skid... I thought it was time to deal with all of these leaks.

 

Making patterns of all the irregular shapes can be a challenge. I have found in areas where you need to make a custom shape to fit against a curved surface... 2" or 3" wide cut strips of 1/4" cheap paneling makes this job easy to pattern. Just hold your strip up against the surface on edge and scribe lines by sliding your pencil or sharpie taped to a block along surface along the strip. Then belt sand or use a small block plane to cut back to your scribe line. As you get closer to the mark take the block off and slide the pencil sideways along the profile while scribing. Keep doing this until you have a perfect matching profile. Then hot glue it in place at a couple of spots and move to the next profile. Hot glue it all together with overlap pieces of strips and pry it all off the surface with a knife. That’s your pattern to put on Marine Ply or whatever. It's not hard... just takes patience.

 

The fiberglass part is easy. Just make sure to have a very good and rough surface prep job for strong adhesion.

 

Feel free to call me anytime. I'd be glad to offer lots of advice on how to prep your surfaces and make your pattern for replacement. I like G-10FR fiberglass panel stock. Its ferry tough stuff and bomb-proof. Got mine from Professional Plastics.

 

Matthew Davidson, S/V Wildflower P40

Seattle 206-660-1311

On Monday, July 11, 2016 at 8:03:51 AM UTC-7, Jim Henerberry wrote:

[Jim Henerberry]

Hello again,

Thanks for all the input on the chainplate/knee work.  I had considered many of the options you mention along with using a couple of pieces of stainless angle iron to tie the chainplates/knees into the bulkhead. 

The new chainplates have arrived and I'm off to the hardware store in just a minute to get a cutting blade for the Dremel.  I can't remember how I handled so many of these jobs before I hae my handy Dremel tool.

I may have misreported that the new chaiplates are 16 feet long.  They are only 16 inches long and in my first trial fit look good.

I am interested in the comment of using some G10 to raise up the cover plates on the deck side of things.  Does anyone have picture or drawings of how you did that?

I'll keep you posted on how my work progresses.  I think I'll just use poster or foam board to do my patterning.  Getting through removal of the old knee is the first problem, though and I forgot my respirator an hour's drive from here.

Jim

P40 Lottie B, #123

[Rob Raymond]

Here some pictures of what I did. Because of the movement of the chain plates, butyl tape appears to be the sealant of choice for the cover caps.

[Matthew Davidson]

I will get you pictures of my chain plate covers next time I head to the boat. Removing your old Knees should come off pretty easily if your have a multitool.. I have a Fein Oscilating tool 
Kind of a must have for boat work. 

[Ernie Reuter]

G10 with grey butyl tape was our choice on Iemanja as well. 

Ernie

Iemanja P 40 #66

--

[Matthew Davidson]

Jim

Yesterday I made great progress making G10 raised beds for the Deck Mounted hardware.

Attacehd is how I scribed, cut and drilled everything out. 

More edits to come as I move onto mounting them on deck this weekend. 

Thought you might like to see the progression...

Matthew

S/V Wildflower

On Wednesday, July 13, 2016 at 4:51:29 AM UTC-7, Jim Henerberry wrote:

[Rob Raymond]

A couple of notes for working with G10:
Any saw blade you use for cutting G10 will henceforth be your G10 only blade. G10 is REALLY hard on tools.
For cutting slots etc I used a tile jig saw blade. It goes through like butter.

[Jim Henerberry]

Back Again with chainplate update,

After four hard days, the starboard chainplates and new "knees" are fully installed.  It was hard work with many errors along the way that will make side two a much easier project, although working out in the cabin (I have the Pullman) instead of within the hanging locker could make for a pretty messy boat. 

A couple of lessons I learned are to use SLOW West System hardener on hot (90 degree) days.  I'm so used to working in cooler weather, I always use FAST.  It was a big mistake making me rush through some phases which made me sloppy.  The cure in the deep pockets of the old knee remnants got so hot it was steaming and crackling.  I thought I might have a fire on my hands, but it did not get that far.  Also, the laminating filler is no good for filling larger voids.  You'd think with all the work I've done with West System over the years, I'd already know all this.  Also having a help mate to talk through things and to share mixing, holding, hand me a tool type stuff would make it so much easier.  Alas, the new wife, although she wanted to be there, had to be at work.  So the end result is super strong, with that home-made finish that does not bother me. 

I used a strip of 1" marine ply to cover the hull and square up the side as well as 3/8 ply to do the same on the overhead.  Then I filled the space between the bulkhead and aft chainplate with layers of 1" and 3/4" ply.  Then used a layer of 3/8" ply to fill behind the chainplate which is also 3/8".  To replace the thickness of the missing knee (which on my boat was almost exactly 1 1/2"), I used two more players of  3/4" ply.  I had planned to glue all the layers together, but after the dry fit, I realized that I would never be able to get the aft chainplate out for inspection in the future if I did that.  So, I ended up gluing the first three layers in place and then doing the last two layers dry.  I put four #10 self tappers 1 1/2" or 2" long, in each layer to tie it all together along with the through bolts on the chainplates themselves.

On the second side I will do the filling/gluing of the first three layers as I go rather than dry fit first since I had to retrim/redrill everything anyway.  I ended up with the forward chainplate a little more than 1/4" lower than the aft, but don't think that will matter. 

I've attached pictures, as in this case they really are worth thousands of words.  Any questions, let me know.

Oh, and I'm definitely a butyl tape believer.  I put both the G10 covers and the trim plates down with butyl.  I'll never go back to tube caulk when I can use butyl.  All up, including resin, bolts, the chainplates and the G10 I'm into this project a $1000.  I figure money well spent if I want to sail her how she's supposed to be sailed.

Thanks for all the info you have contributed. 

On my genoa tracks, which I replaced when redoing the decks (all new bungs and seams, Sikkens, and nonskid), I raised the track up by putting a fender washer under every bolt so there is plenty of drainage and I put butyl under and over each washer.  Seems to be working well so far (about two years).  No leaks and no ill effects on strength/holding power.

Jim

P40, Lottie B

Hull #123