stanchion Bent on Beneteau.

[Jonathanpaul]

After a near knockdown during a race last year my brother only had the otherside of the cockpit to hit or hold on for dear life to the stanchion. He is not the smallest guy around but he did hold on and bend it. I cannot believe it didn't break the base. The problem I now have is the screw on the toe rail is seized solid. as it goes into the ali base, the stanchion will move around a bit but the screw holds it in place and I need to remove it to get the stanchion straight! Any experence on this? it's a 1986 first with the toe rail with loads of round holes in it. Thanks,

 

[aquaplane]

I had to replace a bent stanchion on a First 18. The SSretaining screw was siezed solid on that too. The 3 bolts holding the base to the toerail/deck wouldn't budge either.

I had to drill out the SS retaining screw.

The new stanchion was just a bit bigger than the hole in the base moulding. I think the new one was made from 1" ID pipe where the original was 1" OD, or it could have been metric/imperial.

Have fun.

 

[Jonathanpaul]

Thanks I hope to get mine straight again. Suspected they have changed it!

 

[charles_reed]

When I first had to replace/straighten a stanchion I ended up snapping the bolt and having to drill it out.

I finally found a way of getting them free using dilute acid (I used phosphoric) and an impact driver. The acid (hopefully) reacts with the aluminium hydroxide to reduce the jamming and the shock from the impact driver does the rest.

Now all my stainless stanchions are insulated in the aluminium sockets by PTFE tape and located by split pins (apparently the correct way according to the manufacturers, pity they didn't tell the boatbuilders) with Duralac.

The original aluminium stanchions were finally all changed last year after they'd started to show interesting cracks at the 1st lifeline due to corrosion/fatigue failure.