Bilgewater
Senior Member
- Joined
- Jun 20, 2011
- Messages
- 276
- Location
- USA
- Vessel Name
- Sunset Lady
- Vessel Make
- 1975 Chris Craft 35 Aft Cabin
We just finished overhauling all the stanchions on our Gulfstar 36 trawler. Several of them leaked, especially those directly over the bunks (of course). I was disappointed to discover that they were not properly installed from the factory 39 years ago. I have fiberglass decks with 1 inch balsa coring. NONE of them had been strengthened to transmit forces to the back up plates. Hardware was just through drilled, and finished with a fiberglass back up plate, lock washer and nut. Over time, stress on the stanchion worked on the core, collapsing it and allowing water entry. And you know what happens when water gets to the balsa. Several POs over-torqued the leakers, and smeared some miracle anky-poo on it to fix it. I undercut the mounting holes, filled the void with epoxy, then redrilled the holes and installed with Boat Life caulk. Oh yeah, covering the bottom of the holes before pouring the epoxy is another story. It's in the blog. The entire process took 9 days to complete, though some of the time was waiting for the epoxy to kick. We put a commentary and pictures on our blog site. Heck of a job, but at least now it is right and won't leak. Now on to re-bedding the ports and windows.