Photo help Please- X-Star Bow Ladder Placement

[volunteerwatersports]

This is what my ladder looks like both top and bottom. I hope this helps.

[Jerseydave]

The ladder is held on by stainless bolts with nuts on the bottom. The fiberglass is pretty thick there, maybe 2". You can get your hand underneath to hold the nut while you or a helper turns the phillips head of the bolt.

It appears that an anchor can still be stowed even with the ladder installed, although I've never tried it. It would have to be the proper size anchor.

Hope all of this helps.

Oh yeah, if I'm ever in your neck of the woods how about a pull?

[deminimis]

Thanks guys! Drilled the first two holes and installed the first two bolts. Total thickness is approx 1.25" under the ladder mount area. Clearly reinforced specifically for the ladder. You guys must have a larger cutout as I really can't get my hand in there. So, I'm super gluing the washers and nuts together so I can make it work:



For the bolts closer to the inside, where I have even less room (and not enough room for the 1.5" fender washers), I have to use smaller washers than the large fender washer combo above. Oh yes, I am super gluing the assembly to my finger tip to get it up to the bolt (its that tight in there):



1/6th success!




Thanks again. Good thing my boat already came with the ladder warning label.

[deminimis]

I've got the four aft bolts and nuts installed. It is absolutely impossible to do it like that for the remaining eight bolts. No possible way to get a hand under there with my configuration. For the remaining eight bolts, I may pull the bolts up through the bottom (using line and a spring threaded onto the bolt) and have the nyloc nuts visible. Option two is to come up with some SS weld nuts and fish then up and into the drilled holes (requires a larger hole). McMaster-Carr has. Might be the most sano solution. Like this:

[SKADMAN]

What about putting your superglued nut & washer in a box end wrench? Or is the space too tight for that as well?

[deminimis]

Thanks, but that wouldn't work either. I can only get my hand under there to mid-palm. Hard to discern from the pic, but its tight.


Oh well. I still think it's funny that my boat came with the ladder warning sticker and no ladder, yet Dave's and VWS' boat came with ladders, but no ladder warning stickers.

[deminimis]

Originally Posted by Jerseydave

Oh yeah, if I'm ever in your neck of the woods how about a pull?

......Hellya!

[deminimis]

This will be the last update on this project unless something changes. Went ahead and ordered the above SS weld nuts as well as fender washers that will fit the barrel to spread the load. Also splurged for phillips head pan screws (the higher quality stainless).

So I can finish the project for now, I'll go ahead and pull bolts up from the bottom (with the flat and fender washer combo) and have exposed nylock nuts. That will get me through the weekend in the unlikely event the wind freak'n dies down enough to put the boat in the water. Once the parts arrive, I'll remove everything and start over. I'll enlarge the holes I drilled in the deck to accommodate the weld washers' 5/16" x 7/16" barrel (1/4-20 thread). I'll pull the weld nut and fender washer combo up through the bottom. I will have epoxied the all mating surfaces so once its done, its done forever and it ain't go'n-a-nowhere. In a nutshell, I'm creating load-dispersing stainless inserts. Should the ladder ever need replacing, one just needs to remove the 12 screws with a phillips screw driver. Over-engineering this a bit, but whatever.

[captain planet]

Originally Posted by deminimis

I can only speak to my boat, but I would think it wouldn't make a lot of mfr sense to build both unreinforced and reinforced decks. Mine is already reinforced. Although I haven't drilled it yet, my guess is it has 1/2" of marine plywood sandwiched in the fiberglass. The thickness of the reinforced area "feels" like +1/2". You can barely reach under there enough to feel if it is reinforced or not. My guess is the factory used SS screws (no nut) instead of screws/bolts (screws with nuts). I should be able to actually get nuts of the aft four screws, if I chose to go that route, but that would be impossible to do with the forward remaining 8 screws.

It won't be marine ply, but either thin stainless steel plates or plastic (hdpe?) backing plates.

[deminimis]

Yup, it was all composite materials (several different kinds).