[Public-List] Life lines

[Stephen Gwyn via Public-List]

It seems to me that if the life lines can't take the strain
of someone leaning on them, they aren't really much of a
safety feature. I also regularly use my stanchions as handholds
while docking or heaving myself into the boat from the dinghy.
If the life line system (pulpit+pushpit+stanchions+line) can't
take low loads like that, they aren't going to be much use
when I fall on them. Better to fail at the dock.

Leaning on them like this *might* cause the seal between
the stanchion base and the deck to fail earlier, but that
should only let water into the boat, not into the core.
All those 1/4" fastener holes in the deck should
be drilled out to 1/2", the core removed for another 1/2"
around that hole, and then filled with epoxy, before
redrilling the hole. Epoxy bonds just fine to polyester.
(New polyester doesn't bond to old epoxy, however).

Of course the one step you can take to reduce your
chances of drowning while boating by 50% is to
refrain from peeing over the side.

SG




-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Stephen Gwyn                       | Tel: 1-250-363-3136
Canadian Astronomy Data Centre     | Fax: 1-250-363-0045
Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics | Cell: 1-250-885-6969
5071 West Saanich Road             | E-mail: Stephen.Gwyn at nrc-cnrc.gc.ca
Victoria, BC, V9E 2E7, Canada      | http://astrowww.phys.uvic.ca/~gwyn/
------------------------------------------------------------------------


 1404936949.0