Lifeline stanchion mounted bulwark

[JWalker]

Somewhere....weather it was once of Bruce Bingham's sketches or somewhere else I can not remember nor find (The Self Sufficient Sailor by Lynn and Larry Pardey) .....I saw an idea for welding a stainless steel plate with four holes drilled in it, outboard of the lifeline stanchions, and mounting a  board to it as a bulwark.

In between the stanchions there were L shaped brackets to add rigidity.

I'm replacing my toe rail on Madylne Joy, and after pulling out an incredible amount of bolts, I am considering other options.

At this point, I believe to replace the toe rail I would need to epoxy the holes in the deck, and then fabricate a new toe rail, and then drill holes in the new toe rail, and then drill those holes in the deck. I see no way to accurately drill the existing hole spacing into the new toe rail.

So this got me to thinking about just epoxying the holes and then doing a little fairing  ::), and putting a bulwark like I had seen the idea for instead of a toe rail. It may cost a little more wood, but I'm seriously not looking forward to trying to put all those holes in....plus I could get rid of ALLOT of possible deck leaks! And maybe have a bit more secure of a footing when the weather pipes up.

I know there are small details that would have to be dealt with....but as an overall idea......

What Say You?  ;D

Edit: I found this owner doing essentially the same thing http://www.farreachvoyages.com/projects/buildingthebulwarks.html

[CharlieJ]

came from the Pardey book. No comment on the other part of your post. without seeing the boat

[Jim_ME]

I faced what sounds like a similar situation when replacing the gunwhales on a dinghy...that is, how to reuse the existing holes instead of filling and drilling new ones. the old rails fell apart, so were of no use as templates.

Thought that I could make the rails and then clamp them in place around the hull, then drill from the inside through the existing holes in the FG hull and through the wooden rails, then could install and clamp the rail inside the hull and drill (and countersink) from the outside, using the new and existing holes as guides.

Maybe something like this would this work in your situation? Could you clamp your new toe rails in place and then drill through it using your existing holes as guides? do you have access to the area from the interior?

Another idea might be to make a template strip mock-up of the toe rail out of something like a strip of thin plastic or cardboard where you could see or feel the existing holes from the outside, tape it in place and then go along and punch holes in the template at the locations of the existing holes in the hull or deck, then use that to drill the new holes in the toe rail from the template? Or some combination of both methods, depending on access with the drill from the interior? Could you use the old toe rails as templates to some extent?

[Bubba the Pirate]

Thanks, JWalker for the link.  That is very similar to something I need.  I am working toward a "floating toe rail" a la Fred Bickum. I'm at work and just got bounced off the filter so I can't give you a link.

The idea is a toe rail mounted on the stanchion bases about three inches above the deck.

TrT