Stanchion Bracing

[Loren Beach]

A nearby Thread is discussing SS stern rails and dinghy davits and the subject of custom SS work crept in, and rather than subvert that thread any further...
It seemed best to start a new one on custom SS work, like a "fix" for bent stanchions.
Personal Rant: It has bothered me for years that one must, on almost all boats, caution the crew and guests NOT to lean or pull on the stanchions too hard or they will bend. The illogic of this has not been lost on visitors that give back a puzzled look when warned not to lean or pull on those SS stanchions too much to avoid harming them. This is part of explaining that the pipes in question are part of something called, oddly enough, the Life Lines!


Docking is another perilous time, when all and sundry must be warned to grab the boat only (!!) by the rail or stanchion base, to avoid hurting the stanchions. (Considering the weight of the boat, this at least makes a lot more sense!)


As part of this spring's rail/stanchion/wire upgrade, we went to a local SS fabricator and worked out a design for braces for the two mid stanchions, and a two-way brace for the aft one on each side where the gate is. On the Olson, unlike most all of the later Ericsons, there was no stock gate brace.

We now have epoxy glass plates under *all* bases, pulpits included. I spent a lot of time contorted into bow and stern and inside cabinets while applying epoxy and "FR4/G10" plate pieces under all bases. All were then drilled out and longer quarter-20 bolts put back in. The original full size SS backing plates were re-used.

In our case, four out of the eight stanchions were bent to some degree. All were straightened and mirror polished. Peculiar to the Olson 34, they leaned out about 8 degrees from vertical, and we also had eight black delrin wedges machined for each base to almost-but-not-quite re-orient them more upright.
Of course as soon as we got the stanchions back we realized that the old pulpits now looked like cr_p, so off they came for polishing and some straightening (of the bow pulpit, bent by the first owner), and making some old wiring holes in the stern rails disappear.

Here is a look at the new braces. More pictures can be added if there is any interest. Note that the attachment bolts to the toe rail are insulated with nylon washers to prevent electrolysis.
Best,
Loren

 

[footrope]

Verrrrry nice!

Wow. Looks great! Another painful refurbishment task complete.

Do you know if significant dents in 1" diameter SS stanchions can be fixed also? I've got these two that got ... well, never mind what happened. The dents are about an eighth to three-sixteenths deep and they're about 4" above the deck. They're on either side of my gate, so there is an extra bit of support there, but that also makes them more expensive to replace outright.

Did you do the polishing or did you hire that out also?

 

[Seth]

Outward canted stanchions

That was done to help the rail crew sit farther outboard-very common on offshore race boats..
Cheers,
S

 

[Loren Beach]

More stanchion details

Hi Craig,
The shop that did the fab work also did all the polishing. As to fixing your dents... I would imagine that the method would be related to the way they made holes in the stern rails/pulpits go away. These holes were left over from the wires for the former Loran antenna and for the now-relocated stern light, plus one other with no known purpose.

They rolled little circles of SS, cut to the right diameter, tacked a piece of rod to the center of each, held it in place with the "handle" thus created... while tacking the edges. Then they filled the little circle all around with rod. They then ground and polished it out until the area mended was lost in the surrounding shine. I bet that they could fill or mend (as needed) your dings, and then polish it "better than new."
They fixed the bend in the lower support of our bow pulpit (original tubing was kinked at the mounting point) by replacing a one foot section and finishing out the weldment so that you cannot tell the difference, even up close.

I suppose that one could always try to source a replacement for a bent stanchion, but in researching that solution, I found that even "similar" ones (and there are almost none just like our tapered ones) cost as much as fixing the original stuff, which at least exactly matches the style of all the others on the boat.

For the curious, all the SS work was done by Cox Custom Welding, http://www.coxcustomwelding.net/
and the delrin wedges for the angle change were machined by Schooner Creek Boat Works, http://www.schoonercreek.com/
Note that I have no connection with either Portland firm except as a satisfied customer.

Here a couple more photos, one of the forward backing plates wth some glass tape around the edges just for looks and a closeup of the stanchion base wedge. Note that the wedge even has a taper to the sides, and is not vertical. None of this was inexpensive, but I got excellent value for the dollars spent.
Loren

 

[CaptnNero]

stanchions - smanchions !

I agree with Loren that the stanchions on most sailboats are a disaster waiting to happen, especially with inexperienced visitors on board or within reach on the dock.

I have seen wrenched stanchion mounts on many boats for sale. You can see the gelcoat surface cracks radiating from the stanchion bases. Then when you flex those stanchions a little you can see how loose they have become from the abuse which caused the cracks, probably from strains and/or water intrusion. Straining the base mount surely contributes to water intrusion, which in turn reduces the strength of the mounting. It's one of those nasty circles.

I really like the idea of adding the support braces such as Loren did. On our E34, I would need to do it a little differently since it has t-track on the outer rail for genoa cars.

Another idea I've been considering is replacing the top safety line with solid stainless tubing. In our cruising lifestyle, the few extra pounds would go a long way towards improving the safety system and protecting the bases by distributing loads better. A friend commented that using solid tubing would "make it like a power boat". I spent a week last year cruising on a Nauticat 32 which had solid tubing for the top rank of the rail. Having that solid tubing there made it a lot easier and more comfortable working on the foredeck.

 

[Loren Beach]

The fancy-schmancy Gate Brace revealed !

Here are some pics of the double gate brace that was welded up for the last stanchion on each side. Reason for not having a sliding SS tube to attach to was that we needed the bracing to be high up, and above the center hole of the stanchion the upper tubing is all tapered. Admittedly boats with an aluminum toe rail are a lilttle easier to fasten to, but if the braces have their SS "feet" welded horizontal instead of vertical, one could thru-bolt to the deck or into the top of the standard Ericson FRP toerail molding.

Note that there are two separate welded-on SS rods, to take the usual gate force forward, and another at 90 degrees to help with side loads.

All the stanchions have matching SS plates underneath, under wide epoxy/cloth backing plates. The plan is to ensure that the metal will take a lot of force, but that it will still bend before the deck cracks or yields.
It is hoped that we do not test the theory to the "failure point."


Loren

 

[CaptnNero]

E34 stanchions

Here's a look at the stanchion condition I mentioned in an earlier post. Further aft is an outer genoa t-track capping off the t-track. I assume that the raised toerail is solid fiberglass. If that's the case I wouldn't be timid about drilling it for some braces like Loren put on his metal rail. I would coat the drilled holes with epoxy and also use bedding material around the hypothetical bracing bolts.

Now I see from the computer screen blowup that we need to get busy polishing the stanchions !

That funky reflection on the water is a Catalina 30 in the next slip.

 

[Loren Beach]

Bracing (thread bump)

Sometimes we perceive that a thread is good enough to update or at least keep at the top of the Forum for a while longer.

This week we were out cruising and got into a discussion with a skipper off a neighbor boat who is refurbishing a Catallina 40 (the one model with a perforated alum. toe rail). He loved our braces and especially the double-gate-brace.

Perhaps it might interest younger Vikings, since there's not any real engineering magic to this, and with suitable bases it will adapt to any boat.
Of all the changes we have made over the years this is still the #1 thing we love Every Single Time we get on and off our boat.

(Back home in the AC today, after a nice couple of days on the river..... temps climbing back up toward 100 again for the next four days. Sigh.)

 

[footrope]

Good bump. Nice to know that your stanchions have held up well. I finally had my stanchions repaired during my 2014-2015 layup. Two dented gate stanchions and one bent stanchion tube were repaired by Railmakers in Everett, WA. I guess they put some internal doubler in there and may have cut off the damaged sections. All the damage was fairly low on the legs. They did a very nice job.