So you're saying that even these,if mounted on the cap rail near the bow,should be thru-bolted with a backing plate?   Just looking for clarification..  

scott

The side loads if at anchor in heavy winds could get high quick. I would much rather be through bolted than screwed down. For everyday use screwed down is probably adequate but in any challenging conditions I think it is asking for trouble. You have a lot of load stress issues with any sideways loads due to going through the cap rail itself and then the fibreglass joint. It isn't as structural as just one surface as it can allow the caprail to move/slide a little against the fiberglass joint. The screws can act as levers to cause this action. If you through bolt it limits this action and actually compresses the cap rail to the fiberglass to give you a bit more structural strength.

As to the wooden fairleads.

I wouldn't use them on a bigger boat given the availability of modern metals. If you actually have them under a load much the anchor line/ dock line will cut through them on a regular basis. Under normal conditions I would expect to replace them annually. I was tied to the dock in my 23.5 ft,3000lb,sailboat one night where we had 70mph winds and 3 ft seas hitting the boat. My 5/8 inch 3 strand nylon rope cut a channel in the edge of the dock where the boat was sawing it back and forth almost 6 inches deep. I was very glad I had oversize docklines. If I had that line run through wooden fairleads it would have eaten through them in one evening and started to cut the fiberglass or hit the metal caprail and cut the dockline. Maybe if you built them and lined the inside with HDPE so that it was very slick so that the line would slide easily it would be a bit safer. If you could limit motion so that friction wasn't a problem I don't think it would be an issue.

There are some great old ways of doing stuff from wooden boats. I use some on Valkyr but a lot I don't. They all work but some require annual maintenance or on an even shorter interval due to painting, varnishing, or wear. The bronze chocks I have were made 60 or better years ago and are still usable.  Pretty much install correctly and they just work, no further maintenance required unless  you get a leak around the bolts or something like that. So I guess the wooden chocks would work but you will need to monitor them and replace when they start to wear. Use IPE/Iron Wood to make them and they should last much much longer.  I bought the bronze ones I have for 20 bucks or there abouts on ebay. Not sure I would want to go to the effort to make my own out of wood for that cost. Though thinking about it the wood ones would look cool.

Another major issue with the ones pictured is that they will not keep the line from jumping out. The bronze ones have overlapping ears that will keep that from happening. I consider that to be really important. I think you could easily build them out of wood with the overlapping ears though.

Sometimes I think it would be really cool to start a business building traditional wooden bits such as this. The prices these things bring nowadays are pretty impressive. These and fairleads and rigging eyes, blocks with wooden cheek plates like the stock blocks on our boats used to have.

As to a midships hawse pipe. I would love to put one in but the deepest bronze or stainless ones I have seen is 4 inches and I think the distance between the inner and outer bulwarks is deeper than that.

Get a circular one and join the middle with pipe?

http://www.toplicht.de/en/shop.....und-bronze

http://www.toplicht.de/jpeg/1210074.JPG

1. "Do you have a hawse pipe mid-ship? If so,you can use a wooden rod with a line hitched around it instead of a cleat. This way,when you're not docked,you don't have a stubber."

2. "Works great. Instead of dowels we use 24" (more or less) scraps of 1" stainless tubing. Put the tubing into a length of fire hose and sew the ends shut.   …   If we want the bitter end on the dock,I just use a line with an eye doubled over with a rod through it. Never had it fail. We use them with mooring lines in calm weather to keep the foredeck clear. Lines go to the sampson post if it looks like a blow coming. I just toss them next to the bulwark in the little valley beside the teak deck and they stay put,even at sea. "

I just purchased some old bronze chocks to put on the caprail on the bow both port and starboard.

 

 

So you're saying that even these,if mounted on the cap rail near the bow,should be thru-bolted with a backing plate?   Just looking for clarification..   Also from some reading up on this it seems Dolfinite Bedding Compound is a better method than 5200. (?)

What would be very neat is if some enterprising DE owner could use some of the new CAD tools (like the google 3D sketch tool) to draw up custom parts like hausepipes for our fabrication.

Also what would be more fitting IMHO is wooden chocks like this:

wooden chocks

We have talked a couple times about building something like above for seats in the cockpit also.  As to a midships hawse pipe. I would love to put one in but the deepest bronze or stainless ones I have seen is 4 inches and I think the distance between the inner and outer bulwarks is deeper than that.

It usually soaks the seat of the pants of those seated on the high side who are not swift enough to heed my warning …"All stand!"

Have considered installing removable [for walking space when not at sea] dams [made of Starboard] on the deck from the cabin to the rail – between the aft 2 deck drains … as seen forward of the winches [in wood] on this DE32.

Will probably go with the cap rail cleat – thru-bolted with backing plate – and thru-hull fittings for mid-ship scupper drains.

As Libertad-Carl said above its a bit hard to access the underside to get the backing plate and nuts on but it is doable. I still haven’t done mine because of that but it is still on the list.

scott

Scott

I put a cleat on each side of Libertad,they work great!  Had a fun time as the access to the nuts inside was a chore LOL!  But I got them on.  I am in Florida till May in my land yacht[Image Can Not Be Found].  When I get home I will take some pictures and give better description as to what I did.

Carl

For reference,I'm talking about these.

http://www.classicmarine.co.uk.....wsprit.gif" width="965" height="1010" />

http://www.sailboatstuff.com/d....._pipe.html

They want a pretty penny don't they? The thing that stopped me also was that it says a maximum of a 3 inch thick bulwark on the largest one. I think the bulwark on the DE38 is closer to 6 inches deep amidships. Though I have to say that I haven't measured it on the inside.. However the caprail is about 8 inches wide I think. take away the trim strips and it seems to be in the 6 inch range. I have considered just doing it in fiberlass and bolting a standard cleat on the inside of the bulwark. Maybe line the inside of the fiberglass hawse pipe  with some HDPE to make it slick. It would be a bit hard to reach it inside to glass that part I guess but it would be a cheap if labor intensive way of doing it. Also water tight.

I hope the cleats will work fine. I am going to install them amidships at the widest part of the boat and just have a block or something other aft to hold the line to let the boat pull from that aft position to keep the bow from pushing inwards when docking like you mentioned. Having the cleat midships will let me use it centrally for spring lines as well as a breast line. 🙂 my multi-purpose solution.

I had also thought about just putting a heavy pad eye in and using one of my Garhauer snatch blocks that I purchased for running  our storm drogues lines through. http://garhauermarine.com/cata.....cfm?cid=26 See image below. It has a 5000 lb working load which is way beyond anything needed. It can handle 3/4 inch line I believe and though expensive it is one of the cheapest snatch blocks out there at 150 bucks.

The downside is that it wouldn't work for spring lines as you could only run one line to it at the time.

Scott

http://www.sailboatstuff.com/i.....0412LG.jpg

I wish that I still had them in, but alas one got dropped overboard after I had pulled it out and I just glassed over the hull and deck where the hawsepipes were installed.  I don't know if they're big enough for a DE38, but they fit the 32 with just a little bit of grinding.

Another thing about coming in with a spring line (not a breast line, they run straight across to a cleat to hold the boat in), the spring needs to be lead from about a third of the way forward of the stern to a cleat at the end of the dock.  If the line is run from amidships, it will pull the bow in and kick the stern out when it comes up tight.  I put my jib tracks up on the rail on Bodhran and find that a spring line hitched to my jib car works well when coming into a dock.

Jason

DE32 Bodhran

Do you use your midship lines like this when docking?

Also does anyone know where you could get hawse pipes for our boats?

Scott