tophatyachts.com

Doing some work on the bow area of Windchaser and have a question about the area in the red circle in the pic. That spout looking bit, does that have a rod inside it going into the hull? I was thinking that would be a very strong way of handling the forces from the forestay seeing as there is heaps of reinforcing at the tip of the bow.




cheers

troppo

That's the normal fitting for the bow of a Top Hat.

Can't remember hearing of any failing.

Troppo that's how it's done even on the original plans ? All that bolt really does, is to stop the the bow fitting from sliding off , I think?

Cheers Bear

The boss on the front is actually a nut.
The bolt comes down from the top on an angle.
Mk III's had the boss welded inside the front and let into the hull. (to help stop spinnaker sheets catching).
The bolt is what stops the horizontal part of the bow fitting lifting with forestay load and is critical to the design.
I have never heard of the bolt failing but sometimes the bow fitting comes loose (after accident or really heavy loads on a mooring - storm waves etc).
Inside is usually a wooden block shaped into the 'V' and if water gets in there it can rot. This can then lead to a bit of osmosis in the area so any loose bow fitting should be investigated.
Cheers,
Tom

Mr Tales (Tom) you are a life saver.
I noticed the other day that the bow roller on Felicite was sitting at a bit of an angle. It had indeed moved either by recent storms, good suggestion, or it could have been when I had a hard berthing at the yacht club in strong winds.
I saw a drawing on the pics under the Portal section that had all the info on it to now do the repair. Whoever put that up in the MK3 section I thank you sincerely. It has a hand written note on it "Sample out of the "Do it yourself" booklet".
I tried to readjust the bow roller using the 12oz persuader bit it didn't budge. Inside the hull there are no nuts showing. It all makes sense now!

Greg.