Stanchion Bases

[Hawaii Sailor]

I was gifted bigger stanchions that I will be replacing around the boat (not pictured here). The bases of the new stanchions are bigger than the original fiberglass molded raised stanchion base. Would you recommend I build up the stanchion base with epoxy to fit the new stanchion? Or is it possible to grind it flat to be flush with the deck? I believe the purpose of the raised fiberglass stanchion base is to prevent water intrusion and make a proper angle of the stanchion. Many boats have the stanchion bolted flush with the deck. I will also be re-coring the deck under the stanchions and installing backing plates from inside the boat.

 

[Kenneth K]

I would guess that the angle between the stanchion poles (on your "new" stanchions) and their welded-on bases would dictate what you need to do. You'll have to slope your deck accordingly to keep the poles vertical. Seems easier to build-up than to grind-down the deck since you likely don't want to reduce the current thickness of your deck very much.

 

[Pete the Cat]

I agree with building up. Not sure what you are thinking about "recoring" as it seems likely whatever is under these is probably sodden, but i would not bother with anything exotic like foam core or even G10. I would work from the top and just scoop out the rotten crud and fill it with some layers of structural cloth, epoxy in hard fillers---leave the lower skin in place if you can. No plywood, no balsa and no foam core (it wicks worse than properly installed balsa in my experience), I would not care about the tiny weight addition, I would just be interested in waterproofing and strength. Most of the quality builders (Tartan, Sabre, Hinckley) have nothing but solid glass under the stanchions for a reason. An use butyl caulk bedding on fasteners of course.

 

[bigd14]

The E27 (and other models) have plywood backing plates under most stanchions. These are likely rotted out so it’s good you’ll be recoring. Probably easier to sand them down and work from the top, but if you decide to keep the existing pads but expand them you can make it work with thickened epoxy. The trick will be getting it to adhere properly. You’ll want to carefully sand through the gelcoat to the underlying fiberglass. Make a pattern of the stanchion base out of plywood and coat it with mold release wax (or Saran Wrap) and using that as a “top plate” you can fillet thickened epoxy against it to build out the stanchion pad. Use epoxy thickened with colloidal silica and a bit of milled fiberglass. Silica alone is too brittle for a high stress area like this and the milled fiberglass adds a ton of strength. Good luck and post some pics of the finished product.

 

[Gaviate]

One of the first things I did after taking ownership is replace lifelines with double rail stachions, and new (different) bow pulpit. I also added a stern pulpit and one extra stanchion, port and starboard, to lead lifeline off of shrouds. This was at same time as repairing forepeak deck so pulpit was already in play. Where the bases did not match, or where there was no stanchion, I used composite deck material which I cut thickness down to about 3/8 in. and shaped to match new stanchion plate profile, with needed angle. Very easy to do with good work surface and sander. The composite material has excellent compressive resistance and is essentially waterproof. 4 years on and still looks like a bunny with a drum! The butyl tape of course goes between composite spacer and the deck. Everything is through bolted so composite piece also gets holes drilled to match stanchion plate hole pattern.
I gleaned the composite deck material notion from a posting here by Christian Williams on some other topic tho I don't recall which.

Cheers