backing plates

winddog

New Member
Jasper here.
OK. I'm planning to reinforce my stanchions this winter and I'm reading this in the class rules:
. Backer plates for stanchion bases may incorporate a short leg from the underside of the deck to the inside of the hull
Does anyone have experience with that particular trick? How do you attach to the inside of the hull? I'm worried about point loading.
I also notice that you can only use fiberglass or stainless backing plates. I've only really seen washers or Delrin used on boats. Mine are washers and they seem flimsy.
Any advice is appreciated..
 
I went through my 1980 boat last year and rebedded all the hardware. It had mostly stainless fender washers, though the cleats and chainplates had some kind of soft acrylic, it definitely wan't Delrin.

I used 1/4" g10 plate for nearly all the backing plates. The maximum sizes allowed are comically large (unless you're trying to compensate for damage, I guess), I went smaller for everything but the main winches (I forget the max surface area, but wound up being a 8" circle. I radiused all the edges as the g10 is way stiffer than the deck and I didn't want to crush it.

I spoke to the Canadian measurer (there's just one right now), he reiterated that if it's not permitted by the rules it's not allowed. Not sure what that means for Delrin but I went with g10 which is allowed.

I have seen pictures of boats with backing with a strut going down to the : it was glassed into the side of the hull. Not sure if that's legal.

Another thing I heard of for stanchions is using a backer above (between stanchion and deck) and below at max size (5x base), and giving them an extra pair of through bolts at the corners of the plates. Apparently that assembly sticks everything together really well and is class legal.

I ran out of patience and put it together with just the lower g10 plates, I have 1/8" stainless plates sitting around for next year, I may re-bed the stanchions with them.

Good luck!
 
We also rebedded all stanchions and used the G10 backer material. In addition, we replaced the stanchion bases (we had the old smaller base plate versions) with the newer styles. All of this really stiffened the stanchions significantly.
 

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