Replacing cracked Bobstay chain plate

[jefftamara]

Has anybody replaced their Bobstay chain plate? Mine is cracked. Advice? Thanks!

[skip1930]

I'm not sure what we are calling the chain plate. Two choices.

One is the chain plate that the bow eye u-bolt goes through with nuts in the stem.
The other is the welded stainless steel bar that makes up the frame that the bow sprit's teak wood fits within and the anchor points for the mast's fwd standing rigging and head sail or furler's tac.

Which one of these two are cracked?
If it's the u-bolt end at the bow eye you'll have to skinny up forward after taking the chain locker bulkhead out of the way, un-bolt, and grind or pound the u-bolt out of the way and replace this assembly using a new chain plate [tang] that one can but from West Marine. The 3M 5200 used is going to make it a Bi***h to bang out. I installed a bow sprit kit for a sailor on his CP-19 and if I was to do this again I'd just grind the u-bolt and eye off the bow from the outside and drift pin hammer the studs into the chain locker. A lot easier.

If it's cracked under the bowsprit, take out the teak wood and have the stainless steel crack ground out a bit, pull things back to where they need to be with a C-clamp or two and re weld. You can wire weld it, with the right wire or TIG weld it. I'd TIG. Either on the water or on the trailer/sling. Remember to disconnect the battery 100% before welding as any juice from the welder can travel up the standing rigging, down the mast and to any electronic stuff.

Side Bar: One day a couple of years ago while sailing my CP-19 I watched the bow sprit lift and fall as the head sail filled and relaxed...hummm it took a little bit before I actually believed that the cable, called a dolphin, anchored at the bow eye and pinned under the bowsprit had actually separated. I heaved too and working off the bow in a light roll set a line between the eye and around the bow sprit and tied it as tight as possible.
Sailed back to the dock.

Tied to the dock with the head sail furled I dingy-ed over to the bow and look~see'd under the bow sprit. Yep the dolphin cable parted. And the dolphin was one piece with no turnbuckle from the factory. I measured the length, pin to pin, and went up town to Great Lakes Yacht Service and gave them the old cable and my dimensions. Sat and talked to a lovely girl at the desk for the twenty minutes it took to make up a new cable with new swedges. The shop guy gave the cable to her and she charged me about $60.00.

Back at the boat, my measurement was half a pin width too short. So I took that line I put on 'out to sea' and started to twist it with a long screwdriver to shorten it up, thus pulling the bow sprit down that half a pin width. Inserted the pin and ran the circlip through the pin's hole. Relaxed the line, took the line off.

Everything is fine still works today.

skip.

[Catalina9405]

Jeff,

I meant to respond to this much sooner and got busy.

I believe you are talking about the chain plate located at the waterline for the bobstay.  If so then I had the same issue, only found mine when it broke while sailing.

The repair is straight forward.  Compac still sells the part.  There are two different bolt patterns so make sure you give them the boat year.  You can access the nuts in the base of the anchor chain locker.  It is a little tight but not too bad.  Clean everything up and re bed the new chainplate and bolts in 3M 4200.  It is always a good idea to replace all of the bolts, nut, and washers at the same time.

Let me know if you have any other questions.

Chad

[newt]

A little while back I saw that someone had replaced the chain plates on his Valiant with Titanium ones for not much more $$ than new Stainless Steel ones. Titanium will never go bad apparently. Anyone around take this route?