Does anybody have a picture of what this piece of hardware looks like under the fiberglass? Or can anybody describe what it looks like? I’m in the process of cutting it out and the dust is smelling a lot like wood.
Hi Nicole - the bobstay waterline fitting is stainless steel. Shaped like a Y. There should be no wood here. The SS is supposed to be potted in resin and glassed over with 2 layers of roving. I’ve used an oscillating tool with a carbide bit to cut the roving to remove this fitting.
Design drawings for this and all the chainplates are in the BCC Build Manual. (Note to self - I need to better organize reference materials and make them more easy to find - in one place).
I Recently replaced this fitting on Mischief per the original SLM design. If I were to do it all over again, I would get the bronze casting from Port Townsend Foundry, which is then through bolted on the stem rather than potted and glassed over. We have a bronze fitting on Calypso it it is much easier to inspect and maintain.
You will need to build up a mish/mash glassed flat area inside the boat for a backing plate if you go the through bolted way.
Cheers,
Jeremy
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Oh my gosh this is so helpful. Thank you
I was thinking of this one. I’d aim to through bolt it through the stem with an SS backing plate with 1/2” fasteners. Two at least.
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I recently did this on my FC. It was a bit awkward as my bow in that area is 7" thick.
I had an extensive video of it on YouTube but have deleted the channel. Im getting ready to do this on my BCC so may upload a new one. I pre bent to hull Shape in a vice.
It’s a very straight forward job and I doubt any form of backing is needed but I’m all for over kill. Anyway I used 4 bolts, cut it to size and squared off the holes so I could use carriage bolts.
I was matching existing bolts or I may have considered 3.
PS I had my boat at Cape George and they did all the heavy lifting while I assisted, dang I love those guys.
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Is there a FC build manual?
Great info on this thread - thanks Jeremy and BFNavigator for the job details and photos!
Replacement of the original BCC bobstay fitting is on my job list also.
Sounds like we may have a few interested buyers. If these bobstay fittings are cast to order, maybe there’s potential for savings if we arranged a group buy from PT Foundry…
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Does anybody have a picture of what this piece of hardware looks like under the fiberglass? Or can anybody describe what it looks like? I’m in the process of cutting it out and the dust is smelling a lot like wood.
We cut the Sam L. Morse Co.-fitted bobstay fitting (which has naught to do with a dolphin striker) our of Zygote about 7 years ago.
A messy job, generating lots of GRP dust - glass fibres, macroplastics, microplastics, the lot.
We did the job as part of our replacement of 316 stainless steel chainplates in Z’s 15th year.
With luck, you’ll see the photo taken almost immediately after the bobstay fitting had been cut out of its home. Note the superficial rust stain in the right upper corner, the area largely surrounded by the bobstay. Note also the superficial rust staining from some water penetrating past the hull and into what I had hoped would be the imprenetrable home of the bobstay fitting (potted in resin and sealed under GRP).
We removed the bobstay fitting to make sure no oxygen starvation corrosion was happening. It wasn’t. After 15 years.
NOTE: Roger D Olson, former president of Sam L. Morse Co. did a superb job making accurate drawings of most of the chainplates. The bobstay fitting is one of his few failures - do NOT use the RDO drawings in the BCC Build Manual to make a new bobstay fitting.
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I ordered a bronze bobstay fitting from PT Foundry for my BCC a couple of weeks ago. They said they will cast one for me in the next month or so, they had none in stock.
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Stupid question but why not get the bronze version of the SS ‘vee’?? That way you’re replacing like with like and don’t have any new holes to drill in the boat (which could also be a source of future leaks)? Glassing in the bronze should be easy enough and since it isn’t subject to corrosion there should be no need for periodic inspections?
Nicole seems to have posted a photo of what looks like one from PTF.
Cheers,
Mike
Hi Mike. I’m not a metallurgist, but in my experience bronze is not 100% immune to salt water corrosion effects that diminish its strength. On Calypso, we have removed and reinstalled hardware numerous times that is through bolted with bronze fasteners. In some cases we’ve had to replace those fasteners because the remaining cross section of the bolt has been whittled away by corrosion in the bore.
Once you glass in that bobstay fitting, inspection and maintenance is not possible. I too was intrigued to see a bronze version of the original “y” design, but I still think I’d go with a through bolted design.
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Jeremy,
You bring up a great point (as always)! I wonder what Todd would recommend? I ask only because I dug this up (start at 16:00)
These folks are restoring a Cape George 36 and they said Todd made them a custom bobstay fitting that gets glassed in. I don’t watch a lot of You Tube channels, but this one is one on my list- he was a professional boat builder and seems to always work harder to do things ‘right.’ I wish he would have mentioned something about glassing it in vs. thru bolting.
Cheers,
Mike