New Bow Rail

5/7/12

it was time to find a new bow rail at minney's yacht surplus. i love this place. its like a cross between a thrift store and a junk yard for boaters. everything is super cheap and you have to dig deep to find what youre looking for. we get more than half our gear from here. http://www.minneysyachtsurplus.com/

so claire and i drove up last week and found a bow rail that we thought might fit our measurements. the old one was missing screws and all smashed up from some kind of accident before i purchased the boat. not safe at all, it would actually pop off completely if you leaned on it. (which is its main purpose in life) the new one was one complete piece unlike the old one which was a few sections screwed together. the new one also had nav. lights wired into it. pretty cool.

heres the old rail. you can see how its bent and how each section is screwed together.

bent the frame and cracked the fiberglass from whenever that crash was. this was whoever's ghetto fixer up job.

no rails

here's the new rail we picked out. notice the nav. lights (little black box at the top) and then the wire was coming through the bottom of that pole about 1 inch. claire soldered about 2 foot of new wire onto it so we could pull it through a little hole i drilled in the deck. we'll hook that up to our circuit board eventually, and then have 2 full sets of nav. lights (the other set is on the side of the actual boat). not necessary, but i've always thought having two of something is better, especially tiny little lights that keep bigger boats from running into you at night. no need for a double take with 2 sets.

heres what it looked like under the two mounts that were on the dented side. cracked fiberglass. not good. we filled these with all weather caulk.

we bolted down the new rail super tight with really big washers that won't pull through. all stainless steel. the previous rail had tiny washers that were pulling through the fiberglass. not good either. this is inside our anchor locker in the very forward of the bow. the paint is cracked and chipped bad, we plan on sanding and painting that soon.

 the new rail is firmly attached!! its slightly taller than the last one. i love that its all one solid piece compared to the last one which wasnt and had screws popping off everytime you touched it. again, notice the nav. lights! they are going to look awesome once theyre electrified.

topside view of the new set up. notice the location of the old mounts versus the new. we measured out and left room for a big anchor pulpit to replace that tiny chain roller on the tip there. we havent taken her out for a sail yet with the new rails on, hopefully theres not much sail chaffing going on, but there shouldnt be, its a pretty similar set up as the last. one more upgrade done, all on a day off, good for cosmetics and for safety!