CONTINUOUSWAVE

Q1: on a 1987 MONTAUK 17 should stainless steel cleats installed by the previous owner on the stern gunwales at port and starboard quarter be removed because other Boston Whaler owners have chided me that these cleats are not original, and there is some staining under each cleat, and because they represent a pathway for water to enter the hull?

Even though the cleats described above have been useful, I have been considering removing them, and then begin to use the transom lifting eye as the attachment point for stern mooring lines. I plan to fill the mounting holes left by the cleats.

Boston Whaler design leaders--probably Dick Fisher himself or perhaps Bob Dougherty--apparently had an aversion to having any cleat mounted on the gunwale topsides at the stern quarters. The rationale for that was perhaps to void fouling or snagging lines from fishing poles or other gear used in angling. The small boats, like the 13, 15, and 16/17 never seemed to have been fitted with horn cleats as they came from the factory.

The aversion to gunwale topside cleats also seen on the classic OUTRAGE hulls, where typically there were stern cleats but they were mounted to the cockpit bulwark below the gunwales, and a hawsepipe fitting, flush mounted on the gunwales, allowed mooring lines to be led to the lower mounted cleats.

When I owned a SPORT 15 I installed horn cleats on the cockpit bulwark below the gunwales to facilitate attachment of fenders or for temporary mooring lines.



For the cleats on your MONTAUK 17, you should consult the wood locating diagram to see if there is appropriate embedded wood reinforcement below the hull laminate at the location of those cleats. Without being fastened into embedded wood reinforcement, the fastening of those cleats to the hull may not be particularly strong enough to be used as a mooring line. That aspect of their functionality would be more important than a classic aesthetic violation.

Also, with the stainless steel rusting, the cleats or the screw fasteners may not be particularly high-grade marine stainless steel.

If you decide to remove the topside gunwale stern quarter cleats, you will need to repair their mounting holes. The location will be highly visible, so the repair must be done to the highest cosmetic standards. If you leave clearly visible marks on the gunwales from the repaired holes, the aesthetic concern will be probably greater than the presence of the cleats.

Good information, thank you Jim