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[MYCJono]

Hi All,

I purchased a wooden Phantom from a local club to me a few months ago, have a handful of chances to sail it and have really enjoyed those occasions.

Here is the issue, the wood surrounding the shroud plates is a bit dead and as a result the shroud plate is starting to pull into the boat which is clearly not a good thing.

Im just after a bit of advice on the easiest way to strengthen it back up, im not too fussed about looks or anything like that I just want to not have to worry about the plate shredding the foredeck and the mast falling off!

My initial thoughts are too place a bigger block in behind the bulk head and then use lots of glass fibre, epoxy and anything else I can find!

['One-Pint']

Hi.  I think what you need to aim for is something to spread the load - a block will only add weight and fibreglass will too.  Far better to make a doubler with good quality ply and bond this (presumably outside as aesthetics are not top priority!) to the hull.  Any joints will need to be as good as you can make them.  I recommend West System for your bonding.  Good luck.   

[OultonBen]

What about a Horizontal spreader-bar under the gunwhale ?
I can't see anything 'illegal' about it, and rather than relying on a small area for bolts to hold, this actually bears against the gunwhale and spreads force in a most effective manner.
Some classes use round rod, but here one could use say, a horizontal shroud-plate bolted onto the existing vertical (with some filler around the joint-edges); even say, bolt the horizontal ends through the hull.

Ben

[jamesd20]

As I understand it (please correct me if I am wrong). Most wooden boats have the spreader bars vertically screwed along the line of the bulkhead.

It is both this area & the top deck area which went rotten on my boat. To solve it we (well, my dad mostly ) removed all the old bits, cut away the dead wood - which was actually not that much. Then layered epoxy glass down the side of the hull and just overlapping the chine. The layers built up towards the underside of the gunwhale until there was probabyl 5 layers in total. Then we just bolted a deck eye like all the plastic boats. It worked perfectly and there isn't any screws into the hull anymore, only into the far more substantial top deck.

Once faired in you can't really tell anymore.

[MYCJono]

Thanks for your comments so far all.

I will be taking the mast down this wknd so once ive done that I will take the covers off of the shroud plate and see what the actual situation is. It sounds like ive got a pretty similar situation to that which you had James so I would probably like to explore that a bit further once i know what im dealing with.