[Public-List] Glassed in coamings?

[Glennb]

Hello Jim,

I just replaced my toe rails because of similar wear and tear, although my rails were starting to leak and the wood was starting to rot  in several places.  FYI, teak is $32 to $45/ board foot these days, and my materials cost to replace with new teak was around $1500 for the material.  plus 1 1/4 wide  teak boards are VERY difficult  if not impossible to bend around the radius of the boats. I think Whitby milled the original rails in curved sections and glued them up- a major feat without a proper jig to replicate the curvature of the hull.
  

however, the rail acts as a clamp, holding the deck to the hull, so you must have a very solid, continuous bolted structure all around the boat. without the rail,   the deck  is held on the boat with only a few pop rivets, which in my opinion are not strong enuf to hold the boat together when sailing. I think glass over plywood rails would leak badly and rot.  at least water intrusion through the bolt holes would delaminated the plywood and cause the structural integrity to fail, possibly within two or three years. Also hand laying FG covering over plywood would present a rough molted surface that would require extensive finish sanding to look good.



Alternately You could replace the rails with  prefab aluminum toe rail material, or mill new wood rails and bolt on to replicate the original. 

I opted to replace my rails with 3 3/4" Sapelle bulwarks, (nicknamed 'African Mahogny)' and caped the top with a 5/8" teak flat covering rail.    it was a big job.  Took a good deal of work over two months to mill and fit the bulwarks.  then cut, shaped and steam bent 12' lengths of vertical grain teak to accept the radius of the  boat.  Over all it came out really nice, although it was a lot of work with a power planner to cut the ever changing height and side radius of the wood to conform to the vertical offset of the hull and deck.  I hired a young man to help bolt the rail back.  60 1/4" x 5" ss flat head bolts each side, plus 20 more to hold down the genoa track.

FYI, new molded genoa track, formed into an H bar shape is the only way to go!  I didn't replace my old track with modern cast track, and now wish I did.  

Be interesting to hear what you decide and  what others have done.

Cheers
Glenn 
dolce 318      

Sent from my iPad

On Jun 7, 2012, at 5:41 PM, James Almond <okeebc at gmail.com> wrote:

> The teak coamings on (now off) of my boat are not in very good shape. They
> appear to have been cleaned, sanded, varnished and weathered to a fraction
> of they're former self. Each came off in two pieces and are thin. Each spot
> that was formerly covered by a hardware washer stands a good 1/16" proud of
> the surrounding wood.
> 
> The cost of new teak coamings, protruding nuts/bolts and maintenance all
> have me thinking to replace with 3/4" (or 1/2") marine plywood glassed in
> with bronze hardware countersunk and/or embedded. The problem I have with
> this idea is boat flex and what that might do to the new glass connections
> and surrounding unfortified deck.
> 
> I want strength, a little added height, low maintenance and no bolts in my
> back. I do not want to F up the boat either though.
> 
> Good or bad idea? Alternatives?
> 
> Thanks in advance for weighing in,
> Jim
> http://svcookie.blogspot.com/
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