Grab rail

HAUL OUT MONDAY!

A few months ago we noticed that the grab rail on our deck had popped two screws. This rail has the primary purpose of functioning as hand holds when the weather is up and the often used secondary purpose of strapping extra crap to the deck. We often have both our deflated dinghy and deflated kayak strapped under the boom or forward at the mast.



The screws had stripped out of the fiberglass deck. Most decks, including ours, are “cored” which means that there is a layer of stiffener between the fiberglass which allows the boat to be lighter, using a thinner layer of fiberglass. The great thing about our boat is that it is solid fiberglass wherever original fixtures are bolted into the deck (such as the grab rails or the anchor windlass). This is a positive because if moisture gets into a cored deck it can spread and the core rots.



Carol drilled out the holes, put in new epoxy, drilled pilot holes, screwed the grab rail back into the deck, glued wee teak plugs into the holes above the screw heads and sanded down the plugs.

We are trying to let the varnish wear off so we can be all natural (silvery) teak but apparently whatever the previous owner put on is extremely durable because we haven’t touched it for 3 years and it is still (somewhat patchily) on.