Hi

Has anyone had a problems with the chain plate bending and lifting up off the deck

Quite a bend on the forward section

No apparent movement on plate in bulkhead

Concerned if weld is failing or just poor quality metal in chain plate bending

Suspect if weld fails mast comes down

Any advice would be appreciated

Currently in Lymington waiting for light winds to motor back on Sunday

Barry Tiernan

Not had a problem with that

Do you have a photo you can share?

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Hi Bill

Enclosed 2 photos

Hopefully you can see the chainplate has pulled away from the deck. Its bent more up at the front and the concern is, if the weld to the plate that bolts to the bulkhead is failing.

If that goes I presume the mast comes down with quite a mess.

Can the side shrouds be loosened without taking the mast down to take the chainplate out for examination.

Regards

Barry

Sulito

Cant be 100% certain without going to the boat, but i think the arrangement is different to mine

With mine the vertical chainplate goes through the deck and is bolted to the bulkhead underneath, the shrouds are attached to the top of the chainplate

Where I think mine differs is the horizontal plate on the deck is not welded to the vertical plate but just sits over it and screwed to the deck

I am hull no 28

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Hi

Further to my problems I have now had various "gems of wisdom" regarding the problem

1/ Weld failure or stretching of metal, but not the lost likely

2/ Ingress of water over time down the chainplate resulting in a softning of the bulkhead and the whole lot pulling up which shows as a lifting chainplate

3/ Elongation of the holes in the bulkhead attaching the chainplate, allowing the plate to lift

4/ The deck itself may have sunk/contracted due again to water ingress and pulled away fro the chainplate

Its looks like I will have to take the mast down and examine all the above. I did look at another 325 in Lymington and the chainplates were slightly raised and filled

I wonder if this is a problem with all 325/335 and what approach others have taken if so. I suspect I cannot be the only 325 with thi issue

i would be grateful for any help or advice

regards

Barry Tiernan

Sulito 39

Hi Barry,

I once had a similar problem with another smaller class of boat (evolution) I fixed without taking the mast down. Lashed a halyard and then the stays to the toerail once they had gone slack.

One question would be has the rig lost any tension? if not it suggests that the deck has moved down in relation to the bulkhead.

You might be able to remove one bolt (of at least three) and see/probe if the bulkhead holes are rounded with the mast still up.

I have seen leaks around the chain plates on P31 and P335. Both of these were cured by unbolting the chain plates, cleaning everything up and re-bolting them with new sealant.

However from the pictures there seems to have been structural failure somewhere which certainly deserves careful investigation and probably needs more than just a clean up and re-seal.

Hi Barry

When I bought Blue Moon the surveyor picked up a very similar looking problem, the starboard chainplate had pulled a few mm up from the deck. As part of the refurb when the mast was down we removed them completely and found that one had been fitted the wrong way round so that the angled piece for the lowers was pointing the wrong way. Annoyingly on the starboard side the bolts through the bulkhead are hidden behind the moulding in the heads. On inspection all were tight so it in my case it was just the deck flexing a little, exacerbated by the bad lead on the lowers probably. All cleaned up and replaced (right way round!). I hope it's no worse for you but seems it will require either taking the mast down or rigging up a jury shroud as Stephen suggests so you can make sure.

Photos attached - do get in touch if I can explain more.

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A quick update. Having refitted the chainplates and installed the new (Dyform) righting we wound up the tension and guess what? The chainplates immediately pulled up at the front. The Emsworth Brains Trust (me and Steve Hulme the excellent shipwright who’s done the refurb) scratched our heads. Our conclusion is that the actual chainplate to knee/bulkhead join is sound and very unlikely to move - the knees are very solid GRP/ply sandwich. Steve’s radical but plausible theory is that the knee and bulkhead are in the ‘wrong place’ - the spreaders on Blue Moon are swept back so as to be aft of the chainplates, with the consequence that when tensioned the shrouds are pulling the front of the deck plate up and forcing the back down into the deck. Not ideal but not life-threatening either: since we can’t move either spreaders or chainplates i’ve simply sealed the gap and (finally) gone sailing.

It’s a most unusual arrangement to weld the chainplate to the deck plate, it’s surely more normal to have the chainplate take all the load onto the knee or bulkhead and have a separate deck plate whose sole job is to keep the water out?

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My 325-26 also has the same problem/feature. It seems to be a design fault that affects quite a few 325s - as seen by the staining on the bulkhead by the chart table. The (often temporary) solution seems to be so scrape all the old filler out and replace. I've been told not to use Sikaflex but something even more flexible to take account of the movement.

Cheers,

John Clack

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