Bow rails have snapped off at mounting bracket

[chiladan]

I have a 2006 240SD....2 of the poles on my bow railing have clean snapped off the mounts. I am told that over the years stress may cause this. I believe the marina that stores the boat caused the damage.

Anyway, wondering if anyone has had this experience and can they be welded back on? I assume this is stainless steel and the entire rail must be removed to do the work off the boat ?

Thanks

 

[Creekwood]

You are being lied to.

 

[Espos4]

Can you post a picture?

I am not sure what poles you are referring to on a 240 SD.

 

[skibum]

I'm with Creekwood. Those do not simply break off without help. I suspect that they did the shrink wrap way too tight, or they hit it with something.

 

[Henry Boyd]

Sorry guys, but even without pictures I can pretty much rule out over stressing by shrink wrapping. That's the professional mechanical engineer with 40 years of experience speaking. Before our boat was our boat one of the stanchions on our bow rail was slightly bent. How I have no idea, but not enough to be nasty, but bent just enough to irritate my overly ordered engineer brain. I have tried everything to straighten it with no luck. These are tough little buggers. Again without pictures, my sense is that if these are clean breaks where the pipe joins the flange the issue may be age, fatigue (as defined by engineers repetitive cyclical loading), corrosion, or poor welding, or a mix of some, or all.

Can it be repaired? Yes, probably, but before weighing in on that one I'd want to see some pictures.

Henry

 

[chiladan]

Can you post a picture? Thanks for your reply. Here is a picture.

 

[romanservices]

almost looks like just a bad weld joint to me, then again I've welded once and did a horrible job at it so what do I know.

 

[Ididntdoit]

those need to be TIG welded.......if the rail is not deformed, I would have them tacked while on the boat, then remove it to have it fully welded (check all the other joints for signs of failure too) then re-bed the whole rail......a long process to fix it right, my best guess is it was hit, might be an insurance claim...

 

[Rich122]

That is an easy fix. No need to remove the entire rail system

Find someone in your area that can weld stainless steel.

You need to remove the flange from the deck, and loosen the stanchions on each side so you can slightly lift the rails. You need to place a thin piece of wood under the plate to stop the heat transfer to the gel coat. Then weld and polish and re-bed the plate to the deck and tighten.

The hardest part will be getting to the underside of the backing plates to loosen the stanchions.

We had 2 boats in our yard have rails snapped over the winter. Very high winds this year pressing against the wrap. Both boats are on the edge of the yard overlooking the water.

Rich

 

[chiladan]

Thanks Rich !!

 

[chiladan]

that is an easy fix. No need to remove the entire rail system

find someone in your area that can weld stainless steel.

You need to remove the flange from the deck, and loosen the stanchions on each side so you can slightly lift the rails. You need to place a thin piece of wood under the plate to stop the heat transfer to the gel coat. Then weld and polish and re-bed the plate to the deck and tighten.

The hardest part will be getting to the underside of the backing plates to loosen the stanchions.

We had 2 boats in our yard have rails snapped over the winter. Very high winds this year pressing against the wrap. Both boats are on the edge of the yard overlooking the water.

Rich

thanks rich!!

 

[chiladan]

That is an easy fix. No need to remove the entire rail system

Find someone in your area that can weld stainless steel.

You need to remove the flange from the deck, and loosen the stanchions on each side so you can slightly lift the rails. You need to place a thin piece of wood under the plate to stop the heat transfer to the gel coat. Then weld and polish and re-bed the plate to the deck and tighten.

The hardest part will be getting to the underside of the backing plates to loosen the stanchions.

We had 2 boats in our yard have rails snapped over the winter. Very high winds this year pressing against the wrap. Both boats are on the edge of the yard overlooking the water.

Rich

Rich,
I checked under my anchor box and find that the underside of plates are bolted on. These are the only 2 on the rail bed that are exposed. All others are not accessible...how do I remove the plates? When I unscrew from the top the screws don't come off and if they did how would I replace?
Thanks....

 

[Lazy Daze]

All of the base plates are through bolted. None are screwed in. As you found, a couple are accessible from the anchor locker. The rest are accessed from the cabin, but you may (will) have to look behind things or remove some things. And there is likely a small, aesthetic "cover" that is simply snapped on. It's not hard to figure out where they are - just measure. I would really try to just get it done while still on the boat and loosen/raise only the one needed. "Maybe" it can be done, slowly, as is - but that's a better question to ask of the person doing the welding.

FYI, you have a 240 "DA", not a "SD". This can be confusing sometimes, when asking for help. SD stands for Sundeck, DA stands for Dancer. In the Technical forum, there is a thread with common terms/abbrev.

 

[trflgrl]

Rich,
I checked under my anchor box and find that the underside of plates are bolted on. These are the only 2 on the rail bed that are exposed. All others are not accessible...how do I remove the plates? When I unscrew from the top the screws don't come off and if they did how would I replace?
Thanks....

This is the tricky part Rich mentioned--have a helper tap on the boat deck where each stanchion rests and use masking tape or something similar that's easy to remove to mark the inside in the general vicinity of the tapping, then use the tape to guide your detailed search for interior access. The nuts and/or backing plates may be in difficult to reach places--some of ours are behind hanging lockers or accessible only through electrical/switch panels, and some aren't visible at all from the inside of the boat, so we think we may have to remove headliner and/or solid panels to get at those. It may be a two person job to remove/reinstall, too: one outside with the screwdriver, one inside with the socket wrench.

When you reassemble, use a sealant to avoid water encroachment via the bolts. There are several threads about rebedding stanchions that highlight options from BoatLife type sealants to butyl tape. I thought I had subscribed to a couple but I'm not finding them now, or I'd link them.

 

[bbwhitejr]

I had to have the bow rail replaced on my 2006-260DA during the summer of 2016. There are round covers wrapped in the headliner material that snap on with Christmas trees to hide the nuts inside the cabin. The one furtherest aft on the starboard side was hidden by the head. An inspection port had to be cut i the ceiling of the head to acces it and an inspection plate put over the hole to hide it.

Good luck!

Bennett

 

[be_prepared]

I had to have one of the rail supports welded at the base when I bought my boat. During my survey, it was noted that one of them was snapped off, probably a rail vs piling related issue that the prior owner had Anyway, my boatyard brought in someone to weld the stainless steel on the boat. It's possible to see that it's been repaired if you look really close, but you'd have a hard time figuring out which one had popped if you didn't know. It is a rather specialized skill that you'd probably want to only have done by someone that is accustomed to doing finish welds on stainless.

 

[rondds]

I had a bunch of these pop on my previous boat. I think the previous owner caught the bowrail on a piling or something at some point. The forward most 6 (3 on each side) I replaced with these things

because I was able to get to the backing nuts on the old ones. I had two others welded on the boat by a guy who was confident it could be done. He used water soaked rags to keep the surrounding area cool. Worked out great.