major thread drift : )
To the OP... I have attached a pic of a damaged chainplate fitting on a 35-2 posted on here some time ago, I could not find the thread but I did save the pic as a sober reminder. The owner noticed it just in time before switching tacks and may have lost his entire rig. These critical pieces of stuff takes tremendous innumerable cyclical loads and are not 'forever'... they eventually succumb to work hardening, fatigue, crevice corrosion etc. At the very least, dye testing should be performed but this will not identify work hardening.If you are planning on keeping the boat a while, it is (very little) money well spend to have new chainplates fabricated if you are going to all the trouble of accessing them and removing them. It is cheap insurance and cheap peace of mind.
Regarding bulkheads, once you have the chainplate removed, take a good look at the core in the exposed cavity. If there is damage to the core above the chainplate, it is almost a certainty that you have at least some rot damage to the bulkhead. I have attached pics from my job(s)-in-progress... you can see that there is just air where the core should be. Also, in the bulkhead pic, when I removed the chainplate I could see rot above it and rot below it. The part in the middle is concealed by the tabbing but there MUST be at least some rot in the middle section as well. I had to make the very painful decision to replace it (as well as most of the core on the stbd side). The thought of it pulling right out of the deck scares me way too much.
I am sure the port side will be similar when I get to it.
Woah!! ...That first photo is a real eye opener!!
The others of your own project brings back similar memories for sure!
We started with the most versatile, and most often used, "At Hand" tool in our inventory - the
galley ICE PICK. With just a few pokes around the suspected chainplate, we confirmed our worst fears like you as well -
DRY ROT! Not quite as extensive as yours and only around a lower shroud
but nevertheless -
DRY ROT!
Your point of
dye testing is more than prudent and wise given the loads our boats are subjected to over time (especially if/when racing them). I knew one skipper who would rather lose a mast than lose a race (so as I was told later) after we were side by side on a race course during an approaching storm. I figured his extensive experience knew when to shorten sail VS my novice stage at it a very long time ago. From this, I learned TWO important lessons: Make your OWN choices on what to do when sailing and always insure your vessel is in top shape/condition for what you will sail her into and through. My boat was basically brand new but had she not been, who knows what could have happened!!??? (We ALL know "Murphy" but O'Toole is the one to watch out for!!. O'Toole said, "Murphy was an OPTIMIST!
")
After our boat took a direct lightning strike in a marina years back (1989???); we sailed her for
several years more and luckily with no problems. When we recently went through replacing all the bulkheads and carefully inspecting the chainplates, we found hairline cracking in a crazed pattern from the encountered lightning strikes. In a discussion with a fellow sailor who is an engineer in metallurgy, he simply said, "It's apart -
DO IT ...and sleep well at night." Again - COMMON SENSE should always prevail confirming the rule;
"While We Are At It!"
To this day I/we shudder to think of what could have happened on a Gulf Stream crossing to the Bahamas or even one of our Trans-Erie Races that can easily equal the Atlantic in being
NASTY! (More shipwrecks in Lake Erie than the rest of the Great Lakes! :0)
Here's a photo of the old main chainplates. Not the best photo but you can kind of see the crazing cracks about half way down around the fourth or fifth bulkhead mounts.