all,
upon receipt of my boat, which was without any deck hardware at
my request (i knew where and what, and i would rather do personally)
......i put two 10" perko cast bronze cleats at the bow, and two more
at the "corners" on the transom.....the four ss cleats which come with
the boat were in a baggy taped to the rail.....these i installed two on
each side, roughly in front of the last two stanchions.....these are both
for spring lines and for (this is what they were measured FOR) fender
placements.......i use davis fender clips for two fenders out of the very
rear and the very foremost cockpit reaches......
the four ss cleats were thru-bolted with 1/4" ss bolts and bedded
with abundant silicone.....havent had any issues for 14 seasons now....
the STANCHIONS, however, had to much leverage for the mounting
provided, and were "working", ie the bedding was loosened.....within
two or three years, i had to pull the entire rail and refasten it......this
time, i made a mold (with clay) of the area under the toerail and re
produced that shape in teak of about 10" length......i made one for each
stanchion as a BACKING BLOCK......
the stanchions are now thrubolted with 3" long, 1/4" dia ss bolts all
the way thru the toerail glass and thru the teak block, with a nylox
put on each just as it emerges on the underside of the block....it took
a season or so of progressive tightening to get all the play out, but for
a decade now, nothing moves and the nuts wont tighten any further....
the shape of the blocks was only approximate, so the progressive tighten
ing was "molding" these blocks to the underside of the toerail.
if i had it to do over, i would ask parker about the cost of glassing in
wood throughout the toerail, ie it would be level underneath instead of a
"channel" under the toerail.......i think the stanchions do need backing
blocks because of the tremendous leverage exerted by hitting docks
(yes, it happens)........if anybody is interested in going to backing blocks
for their stanchions or for spring cleat installation, i would be happy to
go into more detail.....it was medium difficulty, overall......i also pulled
my entire rail off (they werent bolting them yet), and drilled and thru
bolted that at 6" intervals all 360 deg on the boat......i put the rail back
with 5200 and havent heard from it since.........oh, one other little upgrade on the rail is to pull the rubber thingee out of the rail channel
and replace/upgrade with 5/8"braided rope.......it looks better and works
harder for you.......i went with black, but a red rope in their might look
snazzy or perhaps white....but the black doesnt show all the creosote
so much.......
what i started to say was that these two MAJOR UPGRADES, while
ideally done differently at the factory, were only possible because of
the INTELLIGENT/SOUND DESIGN of parker boats to start with....many
boater are AMAZED that i can visualize and work at all on the hull-deck
joint or the underside of the toerail.......most boats get so fancy with
drop in liners that that CRUCIAL AREA is not available without firing up
your sawzall!........the honesty and simplicity of parker construction made
my upgrades possible and doable, and for that, linwood and russell get
strong praise.....dan