Unsafe stanchions

30boat

30boat

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My boat dragged the other day and luckily landed gently alongside a French steel boat whose owner kindly fendered her off and tied her securely until I arrived but one stanchion got bent .When I applied a little leverage trying to straighten it this was the result.Needless to say the whole three on that side will be replaced by the old solid ones that I took off when they were bent in a collision with a ship in 2010.I'll straighten them with a bit of heat and give them a polish and they'll look as good as new. These were sold by Trafalgar Yacht services and are obviously unsuitable.I will email these images to them of course.So anyone who may have bought these items please beware.

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http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/...3-d701-4da4-a551-28f92b70823b_zpstwxt3bt9.jpg
 
Scary! ( though I would not like to straighten stanchions by bending in the fitting as I would be concerned about the fitting!!)
Is there evidence of corrosion ( the dreaded crevice corrosion!!) ? If the tube is a tight fit in the fitting then water may lodge and set up the corrosion. I wonder if the right grade of stainless was used? does the tube attract a magnet?
When you refer to the 'spare' stanchions as being 'solid' do you really mean solid rather than stronger tube?
Pretty frightening though!
 
pcatterall said:
Scary! ( though I would not like to straighten stanchions by bending in the fitting as I would be concerned about the fitting!!)
Is there evidence of corrosion ( the dreaded crevice corrosion!!) ? If the tube is a tight fit in the fitting then water may lodge and set up the corrosion. I wonder if the right grade of stainless was used? does the tube attract a magnet?
When you refer to the 'spare' stanchions as being 'solid' do you really mean solid rather than stronger tube?
Pretty frightening though!
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I should have explained better.These are replacement alloy stanchions for the Westerly range.I didn't apply that much force as I didn't wat to stress the base. It is scary indeed! They are still as new,no corrosion at all.They're simply not fit for the purpose.
 
The stanchion is mostly only there to hold the guard wires apart and at the right height to catch people trying to fall off.
They basically need to bend or break in a collision, because if they didn't they'd rip structural lumps out of the hull-deck join.

Straightening bent ali things is often pot luck IMHO.

It's the wires that do the real work of stopping you.
(no substitute for a harness of course...)
 
Are they alloy stanchions, they look like it as they have quite a thick wall compared to my stainless stanchion tubes? If so I doubt that they are ductile enough to withstand bending back. I am sure they would have been strong enough for a man to fall against.
 
Ali tends to crystallise or "age". The stuff bends like toffee when it's fresh, but once it has aged it becomes brittle and loses all its elasticity. Your stanchions are designed to deflect, as the OP said, when they're new, but they lose their "give" after a few years, depending on what's been done during the manufacturing process...
 
My stanchions are original to the boat from 1980. They are solid alloy. I had to straighten one that was bent when I purchased the boat. I heated it with Mapgas and used a tube over it to bend it straight, still in the stanchion base. It straightened nicely and you cant tell it was ever bent. Cant fault solid ally stanchions. They bend when you hit something but you can bend them back with heat
 
lw395 said:
The stanchion is mostly only there to hold the guard wires apart and at the right height to catch people trying to fall off.
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+1 - like Armco motorway barrier, the legs just hold it in position ready to catch the car, and are designed to tear off as the barrier ripples outwards.

Obviously for minor trips and bumps it's best if the stanchions aren't constantly bending and breaking, but the fact that they will doesn't mean that the wire system wouldn't catch someone in a proper fall. The parts that need to be strong are the pulpit and pushpit and the attachments of the wires to them.

Pete
 
geem said:
My stanchions are original to the boat from 1980. They are solid alloy. I had to straighten one that was bent when I purchased the boat. I heated it with Mapgas and used a tube over it to bend it straight, still in the stanchion base. It straightened nicely and you cant tell it was ever bent. Cant fault solid ally stanchions. They bend when you hit something but you can bend them back with heat
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The solid ones yes but the hollow thin walled ones that I have are a little too fragile. I still have the solid ones and can easily straighten them but INMO ally is a terrible choice of material for fittings such as these.Once the anodizing is gone or damaged they look terrible.There are plenty of 80s boats around with spotless stainless stanchions.
 
Just changed all the bases and stanchions on my Fulmar as I felt 35 year old alloy stanchions were a safety risk too far when sailing singlehanded. They were replaced with stainless steel fittings from HYE, raised to 27" and added side gates. Also needed to epoxy the old holes as the new bases had a different footprint. One other advantage was the original stachions were bent by 5 degrees due to the deck slope, whereas I fitted 85 degree bases to keep the stanchions straight.

Not sure whether to place the old ones on ebay or just bin them.
 
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Concerto said:
Just changed all the bases and stanchions on my Fulmar as I felt 35 year old alloy stanchions were a safety risk too far when sailing singlehanded. They were replaced with stainless steel fittings from HYE, raised to 27" and added side gates. Also needed to epoxy the old holes as the new bases had a different footprint. One other advantage was the original stachions were bent by 5 degrees due to the deck slope, whereas I fitted 85 degree bases to keep the stanchions straight.

Not sure whether to place the old ones on ebay or just bin them.
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I'd say Ebay them.Solid ones are no longer available and many Westerly owners will be looking for replacements. I made one base in stainless already because the old one had cracked through. May as well do the lot.
 
30boat said:
The solid ones yes but the hollow thin walled ones that I have are a little too fragile. I still have the solid ones and can easily straighten them but INMO ally is a terrible choice of material for fittings such as these.Once the anodizing is gone or damaged they look terrible.There are plenty of 80s boats around with spotless stainless stanchions.
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Surprisingly mine have all the anodizing intact. They don't look bad at all. the only issue would be getting them off the aluminium toe rail. The aluminium has reacted with the stainless bolt so is no fixed for ever unless i take a grinder to them
 
Ardenfour said:
Mine snapped off too when I tried to straighten them, replaced 2 with stainless, will work my way through the rest
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Not just me then.If I could find a place for anodizing my old ones it would be ideal but I can TIG weld a set of stainless stanchions if I have to.
 
What's the point of Alu stanchions on a Westerly? Some sort of guilt trip over excessive weight? We put a ton more resin in there than the boat really needed, so we're going to claw back a small bit of weight by using Alu rather than s/s for the stanchions.
 
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