After careful consideration, and after having my whole salon torn out to get access to the 8 primary chain plates, I have decided to only change the upper and mids chainplates. The lowers on both sides are buried directly under bulkheads that would just require too much demolition (most of forward head) to the boat. I think that the heavy loads are more on the upper and the mids and changing them out will be sufficient.
It will be interesting to see what the look like when they come out next week.
Now my question is to Brian Woloshin's pointÅ the contractor wants to glass them back with the T's coming off the sides, like they were built. I don't want them glassed in so they can't hold water and can be inspected. I thought just straight strips of stainless, slathered in 5200 and new through the hull bolts (built with three bolts) would be sufficient. The rigger thinks maybe we should add two additional bolts. Building knees and fundamentally changing the interior design is not really an option. Any comments/opinions?