L shaped chainplates

[fregata]

Hi all,

I’m new to the forum. Have been lurking for some time and finally decided to post.

I’m looking at purchasing my first sailboat (80s vintage) and have looked at two now of the same model and am a little perplexed by the differences in the chainplates. The first I saw looks like you standard chainplates. Bolted to a reinforcement on the hull, rectangular stock, straight out the deck near the toe rail. The second, appears to have a much larger metal piece shaped roughly in an L to be able to bolt to the same reinforcement in the hull but then protrude from the deck at a location a few inches inboard.

I’m not sure if the boats were delivered from the factory differently or if one owner retrofitted the second to move the chainplates inboard.

I’m weary of the inboard configuration but not sure whether those thoughts are founded. All I can come up with are that inboard shrouds might allow for tighter sheeting angles but the expanded L bracket would be more of a pain to source/replace and also the L configuration might flex more at the deck penetration and be more difficult to seal. What do you all think? Can you see an advantage to one configuration or the other? Anything a red flag?

[neilpride]

Then one would have the spreaders or a spreader of one size and the other shorter.

Few inches ? that's a lot looking at the picture.

Maybe if you tell us the boat model and builder, in case they would have made 2 rig versions.

[Benz]

The "L" shaped ones in the bottom photo look like a retrofit job. If they were designed that way the support knee would have reached further inboard to get a bolt more in line with the direction of load.
I'll bet someone with a mania for sheeting angles moved them inboard.
Second the question for make/model of boat.

[fregata]

They are vineyard vixen 34s.

I agree that the inboard ones look like a retrofit. Didn’t have a good way to compare spreaders.

Maybe a few inches is a slight exaggeration. But at least 1, maybe 2. It is more clear from the photos above deck.

[neilpride]

Single masthead sloop, it's a retrofit, should they have shorted the spreaders? if they haven't, you have a job there, it's a single spreader rig and the spreader tip should fall parallel to the chainplate.


If they have cut them they have also screwed up the lateral support a bit, which is compensated with more tension, I don't like the idea because it unbalances the whole rig, they already designed it that way.

Also in that picture there is an inboard track and an outboard track in the toe rail, I imagine that the outboard track is where the blade jib sheet goes.

For me it is a red flag.

[wyb2]

I wouldn’t say a few inches is overstating it. In pic 1 the cover plate is right up against the toe rail, in pic 4 it’s easily 1.5 ‘cover plates’ away.

The second design is not a great one. However it may be perfectly adequate for the job if someone did their due diligence. The problem is it’s hard for you to know if they did. The knee does look heavily reinforced compared to boat #1, but it’s also hard to know what’s hiding under that paint.

[fourlyons]

As an aside, on a cruising boat, I find shrouds right in the middle of the side deck to be a real pain for going forward. Moving the chainplates in also raises the load on the mast.If racing the tighter sheeting angle might be worth it.

[fregata]

Thanks all for the input. It’s so helpful to get some more experienced points of view in short order.

I think the take aways here for me are:
1. Inconvenient to have the shrouds in the way while traversing the deck.
2. Negligible advantage in sheeting angle especially in this class of boat.
3. Questionable integrity of the knee brace with the additional torque on it.

I think personally to feel good about sailing this out in heavy air, if I were to proceed, I’d want to relocate the chainplates back to their original position. Especially in the absence of being able to verify the present design