Fairleads, Stanchion bases

[umu]

After a recent rocky night in a harbour I noticed the bow and spring fairleads were slightly loose.
Retightening the screws helped for a while - but the whole setup seems a bit marginal, a search revealed some other forumites even have lost their fairleads.
The model concerned is a B37, 2007 but also looked at other Bavarias and the setup is identical on other and even newer models.

The fairleads are just screwed on using the same self drilling screws used to fix the toerail, just drilled thru the deck, the hull "overhang" towards the inside and the piece of wood under this "overhang".

Has someone modified this? I am still wondering what the best way to do it would be...

While at it I also checked the mooring cleats and stanchion bases.

Mooring cleats are bolted thru using small washers on the inside, but it seems they are all strenghened by a molded-in aluminium plate, so I guess this is ok, or any other experience ??

And finally the stanchion bases. Also just small washers underneath, but could not figure out if the grp is reinforced with aluminium, does anybody know or has felt the need to modify/strengthen them underneath ??

[Holger]

I suggest you bolt through the fairleads. This will require that you drill through the deck at the original holes and have to make sure that you properly seal the holes to protect the laminate. 

As long as the screws used by Bavaria are not broken it should hopefully be possible to get them out in one piece although I suspect after what you said the srews may already be bent. However, from my own experience I can tell that it is far more difficult to get two pieces of a screw out than a bent screw.

When I bolted the fairleads through I used washers a bit bigger than regular washters and to date this seems fine.

As regards the mooring cleats I have not experienced any problems to date and have not made any modification.

As regards the stanchion base I doubt that there is aluminium reinforcement. Typically the gelcoat cracks at the stanchion bases if the stanchions have to carry greater loads. I am not sure that this can be avoided by using bigger washers or the like but I am very interested to hear what others have done. 

[Ricd]

I have had a bow and an aft fair lead come loose on separate occaisions due to bad winter weather while on the pontoon, in fact a screw sheared in one.  I thought about bolting through the deck with a backing plate but in end decided to re-fit them back with larger self tapping screws.  That was a few years back and all are well.  My rational for not bolting was that if the weather is bad enough to loosen a fair lead  the last thing I want is for it to be so wekk attached that the deck is damaged.

[Salty]

I have had a bow and an aft fair lead come loose on separate occaisions due to bad winter weather while on the pontoon, in fact a screw sheared in one.  I thought about bolting through the deck with a backing plate but in end decided to re-fit them back with larger self tapping screws.  That was a few years back and all are well.  My rational for not bolting was that if the weather is bad enough to loosen a fair lead  the last thing I want is for it to be so wekk attached that the deck is damaged.

Ricd is right, sorry Holger, but it's far better to have a fairlead torn off where it is simply screwed down into a wooden substrata than to have part of the deck torn off because the fairlead was bolted through the deck. Having a fairlead torn off is a very real risk, particularly if the shore end of your mooring rope is lead upwards to a cleat onshore, and very particularly if it is a short lead and the sea water gets a little boisterous or another boat passes by at excessive speed causing heavy pitching. Damage can also occur simply because the tide goes out and the boat gets hung up on too short a rope.
The price of a new fairlead will concentrate your mind on how best to avoid situations that might result in a fairlead being torn off. Look at other boats to see how they cope with such mooring situations, and decide which is best practice, usually as long a lead as possible, and if that's not possible either go somewhere else or tend your moorings at short and very frequent intervals.

[Holger]

I totally agree that it is better to lose a fairlead than to have a hole in the deck. However, my personal opinion is that, in the conditions and situations you describe, the lines should not be run through the fairleads at all. A former neighbor of ours first lost the fairlead at the bow and than the line (which chafed at the edge of the toerail).

In my view fairleads should only be used if the conditions are fairly good and you are confident that the conditions will stay so. If not (and in particular when you leave the boat for some days or weeks) the lines should be run from and to the cleats directly (with some protection against chafing at the toe rail). Fairleads do not seem to be constructed to take much force (whether srewed or bolted through) and in particular no upward force. Last weekend I saw fairleads on an Atlantic 43 which looked very robust and reliable and very different from the ones on our boat.   

[Ricd]

Agree with Holger.  In fact I rarely use the fair lead these days and tend to take lines over toe rail.  In home berth all permanent  mooring lines are sheathed to protect them from toe rail while I carry a couple of foot "slit" plastic hose lengths that slot over the toe rail to protect my lines when tied up elsewhere.

[Craig]

The fairleads are really decorative for most Bavaria owners.. They really serve little practical purpose on the Bavarias with aluminium toe rails. I can't comment on some of the older models.

If you want to rip off your fairleads, do what many skippers do, take the line from the cleat, forward to the bow fairlead and then back to the dock cleat. This will double the force on the fairlead!!!

The fairlead positions are designed for the mooring situation you have in the Baltic where bows to mooring is common. A line can go from the cleat, through the fairlead and forward to the dock without a big angle to increase the forces, in fact the forces on the fairlead are relatively minor in this situation.

In the 10 years we have owned our Bavaria 38 (2010 model) we have run the docking lines across the aluminium toe rails and can't see any sign of wear. In picking up lazy lines in the Med, I do run through the fairleads but tie to the cleat on the opposite side to reduce any forces on the fairleads. You can't open your anchor locker if you do this, but so what.

If you are worried about wake or wave action snatching the lines use snubbers. In boats up to about 44 ft, the rubber, double ended dildo type seem to work well. In the larger boats you may need the squeaky and rusty spring type. In the Med we often put our stern lines on the aft winches rather then the cleats. The original Bavaria winches, we felt, were too small for the hadsail, so we moved them to the aft position to be used with our asymmetric and had new, larger winches installed for the headsail. This made the stern lines more adjustable and the winches are more solidly attached to the boat than any cleat or fairlead.

This issue is not just a Bavaria issue. A few years ago, after a storm, a diver from the boat next to us in Vathy on the Methoni peninsula picked up 6 fairleads and 2 cleats from the bottom of the harbour. They were from an assortment of charter boats. 

So basically, don't use fairleads unless the load is not redirected much through the fairlead, use snubbers if anything other than calm conditions are expected, and use your winches as strong points in extreme weather.

Craig
"Shirley Valentine"
Gold Coast
Australia

[Ricd]

Hi Craig.  Just one issue regarding toe rail and rope wear.  My B34 is 2000 vintage and the toe rail has what I can best describe as a serrated top to it that will saw through any warp double quick, hence my use of sheathed mooring lines at home berth and carrying slitted plastic hose to cap the toe rail where the line crosses it in other berthing situations.

[umu]

O.k., I learned from the postings that the fairleads should be considered in the same category as the blue stripe on the hull.

Any comments regarding the stanchion bases with their small washers ? Would backing plates be a good idea to prevent the spider cracks - and does experience show they would actually help ??

And how about the robustness of the fixing of the mooring cleats - considering that when not using fairleads the load will in many circumstances come fairly sideways and thus with relatively strong lever compared to the straight load distribution to two bases wider apart when fairleads could be used ?

[Ricd]

Stanchions are their to hold the guard rails that prevent you falling off the boat. They are not designed to take large forces from outside the boat (being used by marina guys to push the boat for example). In the event of the becoming hooked up with another boat rafting to you, you want the stanchion to fail before it rips up the deck so....the current washers and fixings sound about right....do not over- reinforce!
As for cleats, never had an issue so if it ain't showing signs of weakness, leave well alone.

[solar]

1

[umu]

While I could follow the logic regarding the fairleads (they should give way rather than ripping off the deck) I don't see this happen on the stanchion bases.
Of course it is obvious that lifelines should not be used to push off the boat or the likes, but you are not always around when somebody ties up next to you.
In the case of the stanchions it seems to be the base or rather the deck giving way, hairline cracks being the milder form of damage - or as I have seen on one of the Bavarias that we inspected before purchasing ours were laminate was ripped loose around the base while the stanchion post was only bent by a few degrees - caused by a (claimed) low speed mooring collision.

Did anybody try to rework the stanchion base mounting (like with a backing plate) and with what results ??