IP38-138, Estrellita Chainplate Replacement
Saturday - October 29, 2011•Views: 13892••
Amy and I have just completed one of the most difficult maintenance tasks that can be done on an Island Packet sailboat. We replaced the Chainplates on IP38-138, a 1990 model. The reason it was a maintenance task vs. a repair was that we had no failure, no reason to suspect one except that the boat is 21yrs old now and it is time. Island Packet owners on this site know that there have been a number of chainplate failures on these older models and the failure mode is simply, “the mast falls down”. And with the Cape of Good Hope looming ahead of us next year we did not want to push the odds.
It was a 21 day job for just the two of us. Since we were living on the boat during the work we decided to take it a side at a time, saving the stern chainplates for last. For us, 21 days came to almost 300 man-hours. The chainplates themselves were about $1250 from Island Packet. That included 2 tubes of Silpruf sealant, new deck covers for the new/larger chainplate tabs and the glass strands to do the job. The shipping to Malaysia was about $350. We spent another $400 on epoxy resin, more glass to cover the IP supplied strands and miscellaneous supplies for the job… New respirators, Tyvek suits, couple wood chisels, grinder blades, etc…. We used much more epoxy resin than we had imagined. So the total cost was about $2000 plus the labor, FREE!
How did they look? Most had surface rust, one looked scary. They all trapped water in the glass mat that covered the “T” bar. We left that off on reassembly. The port side stern chainplate came out looking almost new! NONE OF THE 21YR OLD CHAINPLATES SUFFERED THE CREVACE CORROSSION that has doomed some masts in the past. None. It would have been much more rewarding if we had found a crack or two but a couple minutes with a wire brush cleaned them right up and showed no obvious damage or danger. Still, we’ll sleep better and be more confident in the coming years passages knowing that the rig is secure. Also, at 21yrs just because you can’t see the damage doesn’t mean it isn’t there.
Here are the photos that tell the story…
It was a 21 day job for just the two of us. Since we were living on the boat during the work we decided to take it a side at a time, saving the stern chainplates for last. For us, 21 days came to almost 300 man-hours. The chainplates themselves were about $1250 from Island Packet. That included 2 tubes of Silpruf sealant, new deck covers for the new/larger chainplate tabs and the glass strands to do the job. The shipping to Malaysia was about $350. We spent another $400 on epoxy resin, more glass to cover the IP supplied strands and miscellaneous supplies for the job… New respirators, Tyvek suits, couple wood chisels, grinder blades, etc…. We used much more epoxy resin than we had imagined. So the total cost was about $2000 plus the labor, FREE!
How did they look? Most had surface rust, one looked scary. They all trapped water in the glass mat that covered the “T” bar. We left that off on reassembly. The port side stern chainplate came out looking almost new! NONE OF THE 21YR OLD CHAINPLATES SUFFERED THE CREVACE CORROSSION that has doomed some masts in the past. None. It would have been much more rewarding if we had found a crack or two but a couple minutes with a wire brush cleaned them right up and showed no obvious damage or danger. Still, we’ll sleep better and be more confident in the coming years passages knowing that the rig is secure. Also, at 21yrs just because you can’t see the damage doesn’t mean it isn’t there.
Here are the photos that tell the story…
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