DS 2 "chaingplates", if they can be called that......

[njsurfboat]

Dismasted my DS 2 in 20+ gusts this weekend. Got REAL lucky. Its my 3rd DS and my 2nd dismasting (while sailing, others were on a mooring when unattended and beat by wakes). Anyway, D&R hooked me up with new stays/massive turnbuckles and new stock chain plate tab things. Problem is, they are fasted by two puny machine screws with no room to enlarge the holes to 1/4 inch. 10 years ago my maiden voyage failure involved those two screws failing. Last year one of a pair failed with a warning noise and allowed my to bring the sail down. This year I have sailed really hard and had the same double failure, mast overboard senario. luckily, no other damage.
How do I beef these fittings? I have two bow eye type u bolts mounted aft of the stays for yacht club lift/launching. Something similar? Anyone know of any production piece that has st outer mounting that I can use on a DS 2? My DS 2 is upgraded with excessive harken her aches jib and main blocks and allows me to create higher loads. Regardless, DS 2 chaingplates are untrustworthy.

[TIM WEBB]

nj, there are a number of ways that the chainplates can be reinforced. Rudy does carry the beefed up chainplates that accept the clevis pins for the heavy duty turnbuckles, and can be drilled out for 1/4" bolts. Did this mod last year for some "peace of mind", in an effort to remove a possible weak link:



With the old chainplates, I had to use small shackles between the new turnbuckle forks and the chainplates because the holes were too small. For a little more peace of mind, I got the new CP's w/ the 1/4" holes, got two 3" x 1" OD x 0.76" ID SS tubes, custom cut here:

http://www.onlinemetals.com/merchant.cf ... &top_cat=0

and used 3" 1/4-20 SS bolts with two nyloc nuts on each (added one more nyloc to each bolt since taking this pic). So far so good!

I suppose you could do the same thing, using the tubing underneath, and your U-bolts above, if you feel that would be more secure?

[Alan]

Tim,

I'm guessing from the three-inch bolt length that you used the tubing round, rather than having it split lengthwise. How did you drill it? I've tried ordinary drill bits in stainless, and ended up with a drill bit the diameter of the hole I was trying to enlarge, and the hole its original diameter. The drill bit looked pretty ugly, when it was all over...

I've read that cobalt bits will work in stainless. Did that work for you, or did you find another method?

[TIM WEBB]

Yes, I used the tubing round, figuring (right or wrong?) that would add a lot more strength than simply enlarging the stock chainplate backing plates.

At work, we have to do a lot of very precise (to the 1000th/inch) drilling of SS, and the best bits that I've found are the Thunderbits from:

http://triumphtwistdrill.com

Expect to use one bit per hole - that's just the way it goes! ;-P

[njsurfboat]

Thanks for the help. Spoke to Rudy and they haven't supplied replacement chainplates with the smaller mounting hardware in years. All the new chainplates accept 1/4". I ordered both sides with backing plates for about $50.