Access to Stanchion Nuts

[becca]

Yes, I think I may need to cut away some of the liner to get in there. Which probably pushes it over into a winter project. Somehow sailing keeps getting in the way of all the work I want to do...

[Steve Darwin]

Yes, the previous owner rather neatly cut as much as an inch from the edge of the overhead liner under the stancheons and chainplates. It's hardly noticeable and makes inspection easy.

I'm not sure-footed enough to do without lifelines, but I have a hank-on jib and so make frequent trips to the foredeck, often when the boat is pitching. Also, younger passengers like to sit with their feet over the rail and the lifelines give them something to grab.

[Russell]

Yes, the previous owner rather neatly cut as much as an inch from the edge of the overhead liner under the stancheons and chainplates. It's hardly noticeable and makes inspection easy.

I'm not sure-footed enough to do without lifelines, but I have a hank-on jib and so make frequent trips to the foredeck, often when the boat is pitching. Also, younger passengers like to sit with their feet over the rail and the lifelines give them something to grab.

I am in the process of building some new cabinets in the v-berth, which will make my eventual need to access the stanchoin nuts even more difficult. I have decided to do just what you describe before i permanently attach the cabnetry, I will cut away the headliner area obstructing the access to the nuts, so I can put my hand into the cabinet and reach the nuts when the time comes to do so, a bit of headliner cut inside of a cabinet will not bother me at all, its when its in plain eye sight all the time that would bug me.

[Steve Laume]

I re bedded all my stanchion bases without trimming the headliner and just cleaned up the blood afterwards, Steve.

[Russell]

I re bedded all my stanchion bases without trimming the headliner and just cleaned up the blood afterwards, Steve.

Cleaning up blood is just part of working on boats, even if you cut away headliner A couple weeks ago I literally got asked by a woman "what happened to you?" since i was so covered in cuts and buises, head to toe. All of it was from taking the entire steering system apart and putting it back together, I looked like I had gotten beaten in an alley somewhere. Nothing so good as messing about on boats, right? haha.

[M. R. Bober]

I guess we're fortunate to not have this problem. All of ours don't leak, but I have had some of the toerail tracks which extend from the stern to just forward of the lowers leak and getting to those nuts was an absolute nightmare. I ended up squeezing a dremel with a worn out cutting wheel up there and cutting the stubborn ones out. I determined the amount of time it took for me to go through that effort wasn't worth it.

After doing that, I have to be honest, I think next time I'll just tape the bolts down below so they don't fall, then cut the heads off and drive them through the deck. It'll destroy the fitting, but I'd rather spend time on the 100 other things I need to do and just install new stanchion bases or tracks. I've debated on removing our stanchion bases and filling the holes, since several of them are slightly bent and in mediocre shape anyway. I guess I've become jaded, I've spent a lot of time trying to preserve some of our deck fittings when the easier and, often, cheaper way would just be to destroy the fitting to remove it and replace it with new.

I'm about to show how naive I am by asking this, but I've contemplated removing our stanchions all together. It seems like all they ever do is get sheets stuck and I can't ever think of a condition where if I'm going overboard, they would stop me, they just don't seem high enough to be useful.

So my question is, if you have jacklines and a tether short enough to keep you in the boat, what's the point of lifelines?

Laundry doesn't dry very quickly when hung from jacklines.

Mitchell Bober
Sunny Lancaster, (Where we are always happy to help.) VA

[Russell]

Laundry doesn't dry very quickly when hung from jacklines.

Mitchell Bober
Sunny Lancaster, (Where we are always happy to help.) VA

That gave me a good laugh! Thanks