Raasay is a little unusual in having an aluminium toe rail instead of a wooden or plastic cap on the gunwales.
I don't know if this was an original fitting or a modification. I suspect the latter.
It has some pros and cons. The pros are that it is sturdy and provides a convenient place to tie off halyards back from the mast. And it's surprising how handy it is to have lots of places to clip things on...
There are two cons.
The first is that it sits on top of the hull/deck joint, with a flange down the outside, but no flange down the inside This means that the joint isn't neatly closed. The whole thing is held together with through-bolts at fairly close intervals, which makes it strong but lets the deck molding flange bulge a bit here and there.
The second is that the fairleads that came with the toe rail (and were clearly made for it) are impossible to source. I managed to get a couple of close matches to replace the bow pair (which were damaged), but they aren't an entirely satisfactory fit.
Here are a few illustrative photos:
No comments:
Post a Comment