Chainplate bolts ...
upgrade
There have been a few failures of chainplate
bolt, fortunately in all cases the other bolt has held
on and this has never caused a mast to fall. See
discussion >>>
There is now un upgrade kit from Ovi's
to sort the issue; thanks to those on the class association
who did lots of research on the bolt options.
The chainplates (stainless steel bent
plates fixed to the deck which hold the wire rigging
port and starboard sides) have been fixed to the deck
in two methods.
1. The first method used a black anodised
solid round alloy bar with two threaded holes in it.
The chainplate on the top of the deck was then bolted
through the deck and into the threaded holes.
This method of fixing was dropped, as although the bolts
were coated in an electrolysis barrier paint the bolts
still corroded in the alloy bar making replacement less
easy.
2. The more recent boats have replaced
the round alloy bar with large curved washers. This
stops the corrosion problem.
Chainplate fixing bolt shearing
A small but regular failure is that the
bolts can shear. One bolt fails, and the rig then looses
tension.
The class technical committee and Ovington Boats discussed
this problem, and Ovington Boats now supply all new
bolts with a higher grade bolt.
This bolt is available directly
from Ovington Boats.
http://www.ovingtonboats.com/products/656
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