Daysailer II Boweye location

[hectoretc]

Hello all, I'm a novice sailer and just purchase a early 70's Daysailer II at an auction. I quickly (via Goole) found my way to this forum, and through it acquired Roger Conrad's fine manual that I read cover to cover the afternoon I received it. In one section Roger speaks of adding an inspection port to the forward bulkhead to repair/replace a missing boweye, and that caught my attention. When I pulled my boat home the first time I had noticed there was no boweye, but rather the boat was tied to the trailer with a number of lines tied to cleats.
I had never seen a boat without one, but know little about sailboats so "what do I know?".
Here finally my question... Is it common for a Daysailer II to not have a boweye? If not, is there a standard position (measured distance) down from the bow point that I should look for a fiberglass fill of the hole?
Why would someone take it off and fill the hole? I would certainly prefer to have one.
Thanks in advance for any help

[Skippa]

Welcome Hectoretc,
You will find this site has most of the information you will ever need in regard to your boat. So many good people willing to share thier knowledge.
A thought on the missing bow eye. I would look at how the boat sits on the trailer and install the hardware an inch or so higher than the roller or stop on the trailer winch. I will be going to my DSII tomorrow and can get a measurement from the deck to the bow eye if there is no more definative answer before than.
Enjoy your "new" DS, I love mine.
Kevin

[GreenLake]

Hector,

Kevin's suggestion is sound. For what it's worth, the bow eye on my DS1 is a foot below the deck level (top of deck to top of eye). Winch position is usually adjustable, so yours may need to be adjusted if it isn't in the correct position any longer to be used with a bow eye.

I've had the bolt of the bow eye snap on me once. With a DS1 I didn't need an inspection port to attach a new one, but I could imagine that someone might not bother with that and simply patch things on a DSII.

If the PO left the end of a bolt buried in the fiberglass, I wouldn't hesitate to make some small adjustment to the placement of the new bow eye.

If the bow eye was lost due to impact damage (ramming it into a dock etc.) then there might be an area of weakened (cracked) fiberglass which might be superficially restored. If in doubt, you could use a 1" by 4" metal backing plate of sufficient thickness on the inside instead of a simple washer. That should distribute the loads.

(BTW, I always secure an additional line to the cleat while towing - bow eyes have a way of breaking without a lot of notice, because any cracks might be forming in the buried part of the bolt where you can't inspect things.)

Good luck!

[hectoretc]

Thanks both... If there had been a previous bow eye I was hoping to borrow the shortcut idea in Roger's book about sticking a straightened coat hanger through the hole and using that as a guide (sort of) while tunneling through the floatation foam in the bow trying to find it from the inside, but I could probably do the same thing using a 24" long 3/8" drill bit which I think I still have from one of my many previously failed careers (installing burglar alarms - before everything went wireless).
I guess I could put the drill straight through all the way back through the bulkhead, and that will tell me where to put the access panel as well.
Any idea how deep it is from the bow to the bulkhead on a DSII?
Also, how big is a stock bow eye? 1/2"?? I suppose bigger is probably better if backed up by sufficient plating inside...
I'd like to have one for trailering. Maybe the cleats are strong enough for winching onto a trailer, but it seems that would be a shear stress issue rather than pulling stress on the bow eye. Not knowing much about anything in this arena I don't know how strong cleats are intended to be, and would prefer not to find out the hard way when avoidable.
Thanks again - Scott

[GreenLake]

For trailering, I suggest you secure your boat with straps both front and back. I trust straps more for sudden bumps on the road than I do any number of fittings on the boat.

However, those cleats are pretty strong - shear loads are what they are designed for, by the way.

For size, I think 3/8" would be fine for the bow eye shank. I believe that is what I have (my local store only stocks that size).

[Skippa]

Hector,
I see you are from Minneapolis, I keep my DSII on Lake Nokomis. Last week a DSI launched on the lake as well. Feel free to stop by and have a look and compare notes. 6 more weeks until the city forces us to haul em out.
Kevin

[hectoretc]

Greetings all- when I de-trailered my boat to check the centerboard (turned out to be badly cracked... But thats another another post entirely) I found the bow-eye hole cleverly hidden behind the bow trailer roller/stop. So that answers the "where should it be?" question.
So now part II, it does look to be a 3/8" hole, but how long of an eyebolt should I purchase to replace it? I'd prefer not to oversize too much since I'll be working through a small (soon to be created) access port in the forward bulkhead. Thanks

[GreenLake]

This depends, really. I would create the access port, then stick something down the hole and measure. It's my impression (also from reading stuff posted here) that the layup of the bow was not done to very close tolerances. Because of that, you are always better off measuring.

Remember also, the bolt is stuck in from the outside, so the only thing a little extra bolt would do is require more turns on the nut (and, until the boweye is close to the hull, you would turn it, and not the nut).

For the bow eye itself I'd use something like this one. It'll be cheaper than a stainless steel part, but the chrome plated zinc stands up well. I think it also looks best on the boat.

[talbot]

I respectfully, but strongly, disagree. The single-post bow eyes eventually twist and loosen, scraping the gel coat in the process. Get a stainless U-bolt. I like the kind that have nuts inside and outside. It allows you to tighten a loosened bow eye from the outside when it is inconvenient to go in through the cabin (i.e., the cabin is full of gear, you're on day 1 of a three-day camping trip, and you don't have your socket set along. Yes, it is more expensive, but considering the importance of this fitting and the inconvenience of replacing it, I don't see any reason not to go first class.

[GreenLake]

A U-bolt is a fine solution, and I fully understand the reasoning for your preference.

My recommendation was influenced by the fact Hector is interested in re-using the existing hole. I replaced the single bolt bow eye on my DS on the second or third trip. It's been over a decade and the eye has neither twisted nor, come loose nor had any other problems. It survived head-on contact with a dock (major oops) at "full" speed (the gelcoat did not survive as well... but that's not due to the construction of the bow eye).

[talbot]

Hard to argue with success, and I'm glad you've had more luck with single-post bolts than I have.

[GreenLake]

That said, failure of a single-bolt boweye is catastrophic (and in my experience, without warning). So, I wonder whether the U-Bolt offers any benefits. Does it have enough reserve holding power if one bolt or nut has failed to be useful in any practical scenario?

[hectoretc]

Thanks for the discussion on this. It's very helpful.
A mechanical question. Given my limited experience on this, I am assuming there is a reinforcing plate inside the bow for the single tread eyebolt? If so, how hard is it to remove/replace or redrill to use a U-bolt?
Thanks,

[GreenLake]

I would want to make any predictions on what you'll find. On my DS1 (which is quite a bit older) I don't think there was anything more than a washer under the nut. (The laminate at the bow is rather substantial to begin with).

As you will need an access port anyway, start with that, and inspect. Drilling fiberglass is not particularly challenging (unlike stainless steel), so a conversion should be feasible.

Some people fashion backing plates out of a piece of lumber. If so, you'd need to waterproof that (coat in epoxy).

[talbot]

Seadog advertises its 304 stainless U-bolt (http://www.sea-dog.com/groups/1416-bow-eye) as having a breaking strength of 16,000 lbs. If your boat is subjected to that kind of force, the reserve holding power of the bow eye probably won't be a big concern. Loosening of the nuts does happen, but with lock nuts, they won't come off: The bow eye will just wiggle, and may enlarge the holes. But you'll know as soon as you go to hook or unhook the boat whether the eye is loose.

In my DSII, there is a block of hardwood in the very stem. No metal. The U-bolt comes with two metal plates. One goes on the outside of the boat, the other on the inside, with the hull laminate and the hardwood block sandwiched between. Because my boat had been damaged under a previous owner who had let a single-bolt bow eye slop around and rip up the hull, I pumped MarineTex epoxy into the cavity, then finished off the hole with a mash of MarineTex and fibreglass clippings. So I started with a solid stem and new holes.