Stripped screws on vang eye

JG

New Member
The screws on my vang eye (underside of the boom where the vang attaches) are stripped. Any ideas on what the best way to fix this would be?

I've seen on other sailboats a vang bail, like a bridle that attaches on both sides of the boom and then hangs down below for the vange to attach. The advantage is that it mounts on the side, so the force on the screws is perpendicular to their mount.

Is their anything like this for the 14.2?

Thanks for any help.

JG
 
I'm interested in hearing a reply on this one too. Just today I was out sailing in moderately heavy wind when I noticed that the screws were coming out from the boom where the main sheet goes up from the barney post.

Luckily, it was downwind to the dock so I didn't need to put any pressure on it.

I guess there is no backing plate in there--just metal screws going straight into the aluminum?
 
Vang attachment

The current method of attaching the vang to the boom sucks, for sure. It's very unreliable and will eventually pull out. On each of my four Capri 14.2s one of the first things I did was attach the vang to the boom with a bail, available at most marine outlets. (Sailnet, West Marine, etc.) A bail, by the way, is a curved strap with an attachment point at the center. In this case it fits around the bottom of the boom. If you can't find one with the same exact shape as the boom, they're easy to bend to the proper shape. Be sure to seal the old holes. (I simply reinserted the old screws with some silicon daubed on the threads. Do the same to the new screws.)
 
P.S.

Postscript -
Jack - In your case you could probably use a bail to re-attach the sheet block to the boom as well.
 
Rivets

YOU might want to try rivets instead of screws. The advantages are that you can use an aluminum rivet, this with the aluminum spar lessens the galvanic corrosion at the spar. IN fresh water, maybe not a big deal, but I've fought too many SS screws that were put directly into an aluminum spar to ever do it again. You may still get corrosion at the aluminum to SS contact, but this can be alleviated with some bedding cmpd. The rivets can be drilled out and the same size reused. With screws you have to keep going bigger if you strip them out. The bail sounds much stronger, you could use rivets on each side.
 

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