I am contemplating moving my mast winches to the cabin top and leading all my halyards aft to the cockpit. Has anyone out there dealt with this before. My boat is a '76 E23 with a cored deck. The routing of the lines will be OK, but the mounting of the winches to the cored deck with back plates is my concern. I worry about crushing the core and getting water in there. Thanks
My current Olson 34 and our prior Niagara 26 have housetop winches mounted with the bolts passing thru the balsa coring. Never a problem. If starting from scratch, you would want to "do it right" and seal the holes you drill with epoxy, and then put backing plates underneath. My several boats have had fender washers under each bolt for this purpose. Unless you have the arm of Ulysses, and a very long bar on your socket wrench you are not going to compress that balsa...
Be sure to put good quality sealer under the winch base and around the top of the bolts when you tighten 'em down. Do not put sealant around the washer/backing plate on the inside. If any water gets down that far you want to know about it (!) and not trap it in the coring...
Loren in Portland, OR
Be sure to put good quality sealer under the winch base and around the top of the bolts when you tighten 'em down. Do not put sealant around the washer/backing plate on the inside. If any water gets down that far you want to know about it (!) and not trap it in the coring...
Loren in Portland, OR
Geoff Johnson
Fellow Ericson Owner
In addition, I use a countersink to put a slight bevel on the hole through the deck so that when I tighten the bolts, the bedding compound (I use 3M 101) is compressed against the bolt, giving a better seal.
I would vote for SS fender washers, or a 3/16 or 1/4 alum. plate if you want to be extra extra sure. Since you do not want anything sticking down very far to impale your noggin, use nylock nuts (and thus, no lock washers) , and cut the bolt ends off flush, when you dry-fit everything...
Loren
Loren