Getting to Know Your Boat. By Tearing it Apart.





Before going cruising on a sailboat, we heard amazing tales of sunsets, dolphins, and foreign lands. Now, after over 7000 nautical miles in just over a year, we are living the dream.

Chainplates are large pieces of stainless steel that help hold up the mast. Kinda important. Before removing Miles' chainplates, we heard frightening tales involving power tools, pry bars, and Plan Cs that didn't work. Now, after a few weeks, we're living the nightmare.

While our mast is being built, it's a perfect time to inspect all areas of our chainplates. As it turns out, they're so difficult to get to that if you pull out 32 year old chainplates that look perfect, you would probably want to replace them anyway. 

Ours were not perfect.

Half-inch stainless steel. The round part sticks up through the deck. Big shroud lines attach to the hole.



Crevice corrosion makes stainless steel weak



We are learning interesting rigging terms, like point-loading, crevice corrosion, elongated clevis pin hole, misalignment, and a few others. Our chainplates could have lasted another ten years, but we plan on crossing oceans, so their time is up.

Maybe it was a blessing in disguise that our mast broke when it did.

It's a little frustrating to discover that the entire boat's cabinetry, wiring, and plumbing were all built around the chainplates because they went in first when the boat was built at Queen Long Shipyard in Taiwan. We feel good that we are discovering new things about our boat and are doing the right thing by her.



Original markings labeling cabinet positions


Oh, we heard another new term for the first time yesterday. "Job creep." Job creep is when you are buried deep behind a cabinet and have the thought, "Maybe we should re-bed the deck cleat while we're here." Or, "Wow, those hose-clamps on the fresh water lines look rusty. We had better replace those!" Or, "Cindy, did you know we have a light here?" Job creep stretches any job out by as much time as you will allow it. 

At least we get to do all this in sunny Florida where there are dolphins, sunsets, and we've always thought that Miami feels like a foreign land.







Location: Key Biscayne, FL 33149, USA

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