Railing repair

[mikrob]

Hello all!
Just purchased my first boat, a classic 17' whaler from my neighbor, the boat is in great condition but does have some minor repairs needed, including a loose railing. The rail's bow base plate has broken a hole right through the fiberglass, likely due to someone tying a bowline to the railing. I know for loose screw holes I can use the drill-fill-drill method to tighten up the railing, but I am not sure how to go about fixing a square hole all the way through the hull, and in a way that I can reattach the railing base plate. The image below shows the concern, if the rail is lifted there is a square hole in the hull the same size as the railing base plate. Can I just fill it with epoxy, level and re-drill? or does this need a glass job? I want to make sure the fix is very strong, as it will have to support the bow rail.

image1 (1)-small2.jpg (250.56 KiB) Viewed 2821 times

Thank you !

- Mitchell

[jimh]

There are several aspects of your boat as pictured which are troubling. The bow railing for a 16-footer with blue interior gel coat in that era did not have any railings meeting the hull at an angle. All the railing posts were vertical. The rail bases mount to the hull and the rails attach at a 90-degree angle.

Also, Boston Whaler would never sell a boat with a weldment like the one you are showing. And I doubt they would use a screw fastener installed at a crazy angle like the one you are showing.

Because of these discrepancies, I don't think the railing you have is original from the factory. The factory railing mounted to an area with wood reinforcement. It was not through-bolted through the hull.

To get advice about making repairs to the hull, see the repair instructions in REFERENCE. Here are links to several articles:

http://continuouswave.com/whaler/refere ... epair.html

http://continuouswave.com/whaler/refere ... tions.html

http://continuouswave.com/maintenance-logs/epoxy/

To help identify the actual boat you have, see the REFERENCE article about the 16-17 foot hulls and the various models. See

http://continuouswave.com/whaler/reference/16-17/

[mikrob]

Hi Jim,
Thank you for this information, looks like the boat is a 1967 with some kind of custom railing that had been installed by the previous owners. The railing is a single welded piece all the way around. I have removed the railing, cleaned the hole and am currently making a fiberglass repair. I am making the repair as strong as possible in hopes I can keep this railing, but if the concern continues/reoccurs I will likely try to replace the railing with an original.