Spray Rails

[Capt.Erich]

Has anyone replaced the aft spray rails? I am considering replacing the rotten rails and found them to be bolted through with what appears to be bronze bolts as they are pink and crumbling. I am considering prelpacing with a composite and fixing them to the hull with plastizote (sp). Any thoughts?

 

[bobk]

I just replaced mine with fiberglass rails from Sams. The rails are sized for 50+ feet. We cut 4-5 feet off for a 48 MY. Rails were $1400. Removal of the mahogony rails and replacement with the FG rails cost almost $10K at Washburns in Solomons, MD. Nice job, but AWFUL expensive. It did stop the leaks though.

Bob

 

[Starman]

I had made a reply and was thinking you were talking about the splash rails near the cockpit.

If you are talking about those 2 rails, then I will repost.

 

[Capt.Erich]

Paul,

Yep I'm talking about the spray rails on either side of the cockpit. Thet are about 6 ft long with the stainless rub rail. I pulled the rub rail off on Sat. to find most of the wood rotten and the through bolts soft and pink. Have you replaced Boss Lady's? Any tip or photo's?

Erich

 

[CDB101]

I replaced the rails on my 36c with new pvc rails from barbour plastics in Mass. Their website is barbourcorp.com, and if you look under rigid rails w/ ss inserts you will find profiles that are very similar to the original. The pvc can be cut and sanded like wood. Because the bolts on the original were not accessible under the cockpit, I cut the head off, pushed them out of the hole, then i ended up using ss lag bolts that tapped into the holes to mount the new rails (countersunk the lag heads to recess) The rails I purchased had a channel for a curved ss trim, so I routered out the channel so that the original flat trim would fit in. Total cost was under $250 (w/o shipping) and took a few hours.

Chad

 

[Starman]

Erich,

On Boss lady the wood was fairly decent and I only had to repair a few sections of the mahogany. I then glassed in these rails with a couple layers of fiberglass..1808 which is a biaxil with a matt backing, and used west system epoxy. I used a grinder to remove the gelcoat and dig into the hull about 5 " above and below the rail. This way the new glassed in rail is now a fixed part of the boat.

Mahogany is good for these rails as is dyvinicel foam. With the foam I would suggest 3 layers of the fiberglass. This is to make sure there is enough holding power for the screws when fixing the stailess rail into place.

However, My first choice would be mahogany. You can uses longer screws with more holding power for the rail.

This is not that huge of a project, and if you do it yourself, you may have about 1k in materials.

Here are a couple pics.

Will be back on this evening.