Summary
(please click on any of the pictures for a larger one - use the BACK button to come back)
When I was done working on the boat, I only wanted two teak "items" to remain and to have to maintain on the exterior - the cabin doors, and the tiller.
All of the other teak would have to go.
I used to own a tugboat with some "fat" stainless handrails that really looked good on the pilothouse-style boat. I wanted to duplicate that look here.
Also, the existing (if you could call it that) teak boomkin was falling apart, and off the boat. It was not a very sturdy arrangement. It was a 4ft piece of teak canilevered off the back of the boat held on by a few carriage bolts through only the latter foot or so of the beam.
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Here's a couple of pictures of the old teak boomkin (right before it "fell" off...).
I had also started playing with PVC here. |
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Surely there was a better way......
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I started with multiple sketches, and lots of phone calls and internet searches for stainless fabricators.
After learning a lot things about what I would need to do just by reading and talking to people, I chose a fabricator who seemed to speak "my language". The problem was that he was 2500 miles away on the other coast!!!
I wanted to try anyway.
I drew up a series of drawings to show them what I wanted, both of the handrails and the of the boomkin shown below (you'll HAVE to click on these in order to see them).
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Most of the vendors recommended a junction in the tubing so that it could be fit to the hull angle when installed. I didn't want a toggle junction where the "down tubes" met the hull as most of the fabricators suggested. I thought that it would ruin the "look".
I just thought it would look kind of cheezy. I wanted the tube angles to come down and meet the hull with the right bend to begin with. You know, that "designed from the start" look.
In order to get as close as possible, I built a jig out of PVC pipe, the "faces" of which matched the attachment points and deck and hull angles exactly. My son was a HUGE help in doing this.
I sent the jig to the fabricator, emailed my drawings, and crossed my fingers...... |
I was worried about the hull being able to take the load of the "down tubes" along the sides of the hull.
That boomkin is the first thing that will hit anything when manuvering around a crowded dock. I wanted it to be bulletproof.
I found these neat pre-fab foam stringer beams that West Marine had with heavy fiberglass pre-sewn around them. This was just what I needed to reinforce the hull sides were the boomkin supports would meet up with it.
First I ground down the area inside of each hull side.
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Next, I glassed in the beams with plenty of epoxy and soaking of fiberglass.
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I couldn't put the holes for the boomkin through the center of the beam because of the foam "stringer", so I put the beam as close as possible to where the flange would meet.
Here is one side with the holes drilled.
(Yes, I had the finished boomkin in hand before I did all of this part - I just don't want to show you yet.....)
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Well, the finished product was absolutely GORGEOUS (in my mind, anyway). It is ROCK solid. I can stand out on the very tip end of the boomkin and there is no flex in the hull whatsoever.
Mission accomplished.
Here are some pictures of the finished installation and the handrails. |
I never do this, but I HAVE to give it up for Riley Marine, http://www.rileymarine.com, for doing an outstanding job on these stainless pieces. All of it 2500 miles away, over the internet, too!
I have no affiliation whatsoever, or any financial interest in their business. |
Lessons Learned
There's no such thing as supplying too much information to a fabricator.
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