Gunwale Reinforcing

[Corey_lax]

Hi Guys,

I recently installed mounts for electric scottys on my boat. I've been using the manual riggers with no problem but the 1106 scottys put a lot of extra stress on the gunwales. With the amount of holes put into the gunwales, and the age of the boat, they gunwales have quite a bit of flex.

What would you do to reinforce this? Cut some plywood wedges and epoxy them inside of the gunwale to stiffen everything up?

With the amount of holes in this vicinity, I'm almost tempted to adhere a piece of L shaped 1/4" thick aluminum to the top side (4" x 8" angle about 32" long).

Thanks,

Corey

 

[pescador]

I have a piece of aluminum under the rigger bracket mounted on top of the gunnel about 4 inches longer than the scotty bracket same width of gunnel to spread the load. It's approx 3/8 thickness plus or minus. Under the gunnel, I mount a piece of 1/2 or 3/4 plywood same size again to spread the load. Then bolt all three pieces together thru the gunnel and problem solved. You will have to buy longer bolts to fasten the bracket but you will find it much stronger. Be sure to buy wide washers so the bolts don't penetrate in to the plywood when you torque the bolts. I use the Allen Head stainless bolts and I found they fit nicely.

 

[Dogbreath]

I like Pescador's idea-I'd also fill in all those holes with JB Weld or something similar.

 

[stephennicholls531]

I also have floppy gunwales...I'm trying this, but it will be quite some time before I get to try it out for real - just a thought, though.

I (very carefully) removed three rusty nuts from the backside of the rub rail, directly behind the Downrigger mounting plate. Drilled matching holes in a 1"X 1" aluminum "L" bracket, and attached it to the the backside of the rub rail. Used the same "L" bracket material with two holes to match the backside of the bottom two Downrigger Mount bolts, using big stainless washers on everything. Then I drilled holes and attached two galvanized turnbuckles, also with stainless washers and bolts - these take care of any misalignments, and can be easily adjusted to put enough tension between the "L" brackets to really stabilize the gunwale. Seems to work in the garage, again, not too sure about how it's going to work in the real world.

Cheers !

 

[Corey_lax]

I like that Stephen. These are all good ideas. I'll mgyver something up with all these suggestions. Thanks all.