Cost of replacing P bracket

[maej]

I have a Sadler 34 that's ashore for osmosis treatment. My pre-purchase survey from November advised replacing the P bracket due to dezincification & it did look quite pink when he scratched in to the surface. The yard doing the osmosis treatment have given me a price of £1400 + VAT & materials to replace it so I'm not going to get much change from two grand once the cost of the bracket itself, the other materials and the VAT are all added on.

This was quite a shock, I had no idea it was such an expensive thing to have done. Is this a realistic price? at the quoted £49 per hour labour that's over 28 man hours!

The P bracket is a glassed in type and the current one has no connection to an anode but a new one will do I'll make sure of it.

 

[SHUG]

Firstly I wouln't get too concerned about "a bit of pink". It is usually a surface effect caused by de-zincification of the alloy. I would suggest that you polish the P- bracket back to the normal colour, check that the anodes are all properly connected and possibly put an anode on the bracket.
I had a P-bracket replaced in Mallorca because it was cracked and as I recall it was about £400 for the bracket and about £200 for replacement.

 

[vyv_cox]

I replaced mine on my Sadler 34 myself, full details on my website. It took me about two days, working by myself, although there is a little waiting time for resins to go off. Is the bracket loose or does it leak water into the boat? If either then it's worth doing. Mine was not well attached by Sadlers, a very amateurish effort.

As Shug says, the first thing to check is that the dezincification is worse than a surface effect. When DZ is advanced you will be able to chip fragments off small sections, such as the edges of the bearing housing.

 

[Bosun Higgs]

Easy thing to DIY, but personally I would be surprised if the de-zincification was more than surface deep and in that case replacement is not needed.

Go along to the boat with some fine emery paper and rub the side of the P bracket to see if the reddish colour disappears quickly and you get to yellow. It has to be your call but long before your P bracket dissolved away I would have expected problems elsewhere like seacocks or prop edges.

Surveyors are very useful but they do have to cover their backsides or some claim minded chancer would be asking for all sorts of jobs to be done in the yard.

 

[Skysail]

On our first boat in 1995, the P bracket was loose and needed refitting. The quote was about £800 which the former owner paid. It was a non-trivial task, involving grinding out the GRP box in the stern cabin, which housed the P bracket inside the hull, rebuilding the box, and realigning the bracket.

I thought that was a fair price.

 

[maej]

Thanks.

I don't think there's water coming in, but I do think the joint to the hull has absorbed water. I've attached some pictures (hopefully this works). This is apparently not the original bracket as it was replaced in 2003 by the previous owner following an incident with some rope.

Next time I'm down at the boat I'll have a dig with a screwdriver and see if it chips.

So 2 days for 1 person without yard facilities to replace one, sounds like this price is well over the top.

 

[Bosun Higgs]

Have a real good look at it first. Does it waggle side to side when you put pressure on it? If you clean off the antifoul, is it redish underneath or normal yellowish? If yellow is it deep or just surface?

Its difficult if not impossible to get a watertight bond between grp and metal so a small weep between P bracket and hull when first lifted out is pretty normal and easy to cure with some sealant if the P bracket itself is firm.

To refix the P bracket or to install another depends on how this one is held in. Can you see signs of any screws into the side of the GRP hump in the boat? If there is no obvious fastening then removing the P bracket might well involve removing the grp hump - not difficult or time consuming but messy. What will take some time is remaking the hump round a new P bracket but it will be time from start to finish with longish break periods for resin to go off etc, so I dont see the hours they have allowed for.

If the surveyor is condemning the whole P bracket and involving you in a large bill on the basis of what he can see in that one tiny scrape, then I am not at all impressed.

 

[Norman_E]

I very much doubt that it needs changing unless it is loose or very badly de-zincified, in which case it will be nothing but a weak matrix of copper with a pinkish colour. I would be surprised if that was the case if it is less than 9 years old unless it has been earthed inside the boat so that it can form part of a galvanic circuit. Without any electrical connection to anything else it is unlikely to have suffered significant electrolytic damage. To find out if it is OK you need to strip off all the paint and abrade it hard with coarse emery cloth, then fine. If it polishes up to a gold colour once the surface layer that has probably lost a bit of zinc has been rubbed away the its OK. If you are worried about future de-zincification then drill a hole in it and attach a zinc anode directly to it before re-launch.

 

[Keith 66]

To get the P bracket out you will have to draw the propellor shaft, with a transom hung rudder its relativly easy to take the rudder off, then its remove the shaft coupling to get the shaft out. If you cant get the shaft past the rudder its an engine out job.
The p bracket is glassed in normally with a bolt or piece of studding through a hole in the top of it inside the boat. Depending on how well its been glassed on it might take one hour to remove or several! Once its out a new one is relatively easy to replace but you will have to check the engine alignment. Worth checking if it really needs replacing. If you do need a new one try lake engineering at Poole.

 

[colhel]

I don't know anything about P brackets (I have a saildrive) but could normal A/F have caused the OPs problems?

 

[vyv_cox]

To get the P bracket out you will have to draw the propellor shaft, with a transom hung rudder its relativly easy to take the rudder off, then its remove the shaft coupling to get the shaft out. If you cant get the shaft past the rudder its an engine out job.
The p bracket is glassed in normally with a bolt or piece of studding through a hole in the top of it inside the boat. Depending on how well its been glassed on it might take one hour to remove or several! Once its out a new one is relatively easy to replace but you will have to check the engine alignment. Worth checking if it really needs replacing. If you do need a new one try lake engineering at Poole.

It's a Sadler 34! Rudder not transom hung. Shaft will pass the rudder as it is offset. The P bracket is attached to two inch angles bolted to the hull. All described on my website.

 

[maej]

Thanks everyone for the good advise. Sounds like I need to get down to the boat and investigate it more closely, hopefully it will be ok and save me a big expense.

How deep is too deep for the discolouration?

I have tried looking for movement in the bracket by tugging on it from each side and it seems pretty solid, there was a slight seep of water from around the joint but I could not feel any movement.

I motored about 100 miles in November and there was no excess vibration or noise.

 

[Skysail]

Once the joint has dried out for a few days, it will go stiff and be difficult to move. If it moved originally and / or seeped water, be suspicious.

 

[Bosun Higgs]

How deep is too deep for the discolouration?

I have tried looking for movement in the bracket by tugging on it from each side and it seems pretty solid, there was a slight seep of water from around the joint but I could not feel any movement.

I motored about 100 miles in November and there was no excess vibration or noise.

Any measureable depth is too much - what you are hoping for is the sort of surface discoloration that will come off with some rubbing with emery, so a few thou. Judge it in terms of the thickness of the P bracket and how much thinner and weaker it would be if you removed all the reddish discolouration.

If all there is is some water weeping down the side then all that is needed is to dry it out properly ( ie wash first with fresh) , clean off the hull and p bracket surface round the join and then seal with polysulphide sealant which is better than polyurethane under water.

 

[SimonJ]

P Bracket

Looks better than my (Sadler 34) P bracket which is the original 1984 version!

If it loose/leaking there are easy solutions. I was advised by a very experienced boat builder to caulk the joint (using traditional methods, material and tools etc) - takes an hour - and then epoxy over the top. This has worked well for me since 1992 and after several very long trips including 4 X across the 'pond' with lots of motoring (& sailing!) it is still solid.

 

[kalanka]

I had a wobbly P bracket on an S34 a couple of years ago. All paint was removed - no sign of de-zincification. Local self employed shipwright re-fixed and re-glassed the bracket, fitted new cutlass bearings and stern gland and aligned the whole thing for about £400. This seemed very fair to me.

The hourly rate charged by yards makes almost anything ludicrously expensive - as I have just discovered by getting a relatively simple job on a small outboard motor done professionally.

If I had anticipated the eventual cost a new motor would have been better value....