Two New Stanchions

Originally, when I bought Calliope, she was fitted with a boom gallows which was a silly apparatus. Basically this was a stainless structure that went over the cockpit and supported the boom. What it also did was prevent you from trimming the main properly. She also was fitted with ratlines but we won't even go there. Anyhow, the boom gallows was something that I removed relatively soon after buying the boat, but this left a gap at the cockpit where the lifelines would be unsupported so I needed to buy some stanchions. My 'quick fix' for this entailed going to bacon's and buying what they had. I got 2 stanchions with circular 4-hole mechanical bases and installed them. This system worked fine for 4 years, but it was less than ideal...they were not very stiff, the mechanical bases were not so great, they were 7/8" rather than 1" like the other stanchions, and the collars I was using did not hold the lower lifelines properly. I got new lifelines last year which have pelican hooks for the end attachments so that they can be opened at the cockpit, forming a 'gate' which makes it easy to load and unload things at the cockpit...super nice.

I decided that it was finally time to replace these stanchions so I bought some with welded bases off the rack at Tops in Quality. They sold me these for $40 each which I thought was quite a good deal. They don't exactly match the other stanchions but I don't care too much and they are very stiff. I also got some gate braces from Bacon's which fit them nicely. Installing them was a bit tricky as the bases have no angle to them but the stanchions could not be installed perpendicular to the deck or they would be sticking waay out. So I had to make some wedges for their bases which allows them to stand at the proper angle. I ordered some plastic splitting wedges from McMaster which I cut out to form base wedges of the proper angle to fit the stanchions on. While I was at it, I fabricated some backing plates from 1/4" G-10 which would make them nice and stiff. When I marked the holes, I overdrilled them with a 3/4" forstner bit, and backfilled these oversized holes with thickened epoxy. Then after the epoxy cured I drilled & tapped 1/4" x 20 TPI holes for the fasteners. I installed stanchions, wedges & backing plates in a generous bed of polysulfide caulk. Christina helped me to tighten the through bolts which was very nice of her.

After I had attached the stanchions I installed the gate braces at the proper angle and I also attached bushings which hold the lifelines forward of the stanchion under tension even when the gate is open. I am very happy with this system. These stanchions are much stiffer and they look better than the old ones too! It's nice to be able to open the gate without the whole lifeline going slack!

Here are some shots of the new stanchions:

This is what the big picture looks like. Note the gate brace and strop bushings on the lifelines. This is a close-up of the base where you can see the plastic wedge under the stanchion.

This is a view from the underside that shows the bolts (a bit too long) along with the 1/4" G-10 backing plate.