Yikes, My jib track pulled out !!

[larrys]

We were sailing the boat in 10-15 winds last night when the entire port jib track pulled out of the coach roof. There is no apparent rotten core damage. Instead, the metal sleeves inside the cabin the track is bolted to seem to have corroded over the years and enough of them lost their grip to cause the track to exit the boat.

 

I'm planning to fill the holes with West system epoxy, drill them back out and through bolt the track with good sized fender washers on the inside. Does anyone have a better idea?

 

Thanks, Larry Smith (larrycsmith@gmail.com)

[robertgharrison]

Instead, the metal sleeves inside the cabin the track is bolted to seem to have corroded over the years and enough of them lost their grip to cause the track to exit the boat.

 

That sounds awful. I'm not knowledgeable about repairs, but you may want to look at this from the West System website, "Repairing machined holes in fiberglass":

 

http://www.westsystem.com/ss/repairing-machined-holes-in-fiberglass/

 

How old is your boat? Can you provide a little more detail regarding the "metal sleeves"? I wonder why they corroded.

[FranklyScarlet]

I've had fittings pull out of the cabin top and repaired in the same manner you described with both fiberglass and West Epoxy. It worked fine with some big washers. For the Jib Tracks, you may want tape the holes in the deck and repair from inside the cabin. That way you won't have to sand the area where there may be non-skid. You'll need to add quite a bit of filler to the epoxy to thicken it to apply to the cabin top from inside. Or the new West 610 Epoxy is supposed to be pre-mixed and thickened. One word of caution, the epoxy sets up fast, so mix small batches.

 

KT