While I had the cockpit floor sections at home during the beam block repair, I fitted six soft pad eyes in the deck sections for the jib sheets, a mainsail cunningham anchor, and harness anchor point. It was a bit of a drama compared to fitting hardware but worth it because my kids won't stub there toes (or me), and one can still lounge on the deck without having a piece of hardware sticking on one's back.
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| Top side |
The pad eyes are lengths of 3/16 dyneema knotted through the deck reinforcing and then epoxied in place. The cunningham and harness points are in the center deck and I glued reinforcing pads under the deck where they are fitted. I have used them already and they seem to work perfectly. The 3/16 dyneema is far stronger than the wood that it is anchored in and I will report back on how they stand up over time.
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| Under side (side decks) |
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| Reinforcement block under center section for harness anchor point |
wow very interesting experiment. The only issue I could see is that water might get to the wood by wicking through the rope. But I suppose if you have epoxy sealed the holes first you should be good to go!
ReplyDeleteHoping it works for you!
Hi mgtdOcean,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment. I drilled the holes oversize so that the lines were a loose fit, then filled the holes up with epoxy. It took a while to fill the holes as the line would soak up the epoxy and the level in the holes would drop. Need to have the bottoms of the holes taped up around the knot so that all the epoxy doesn't run out.
Cool, sounds like you got a handle on it. My mind has been racing with the possibilities! I've seen a Wharram that used a similar method to attach the forestay bridle to the bows. Abrasion I guess is the biggest issue.
ReplyDeleteI love your write ups about the SF Bay area. I was stationed in Alameda in the mid 1980s onboard CVN70 for several years but never got much sailing in:( Especially like the short videos.
Thanks
Edward
Hi mgtdCoean,
ReplyDeleteThanks, I'm glad you like the blog. One thing to consider is that the Tiki 21 is small and has a small sail area so the loads are not very high for the pad eyes done in this way. I'm not sure how it would go on a much bigger boat.
Hi, I just stumbled across your blog from a google search on dyneema rigging. I like the soft pad eye. How have they held up? Is there anything you would have done different in hindsight? Do you think installation with addition of a deck bushing / fairleed (to protect chafe against the top side edge) would be pretty straightforward?
ReplyDeleteHi Scott,
ReplyDeleteI have been using them without problems. I wouldn't bother with the bushings - I can't see any wear at all yet. The ends are completely imbedded in epoxy and the dyneema is very tough. Keep in mind that the Tiki jib is only 78 sq ft and the main is 130 sq ft so the loads are low.