Thanks to Al McMillan
for this submission. Al sails his Chrysler 26, "Skean-dhu", on Lake Winnipeg,
in Manitoba.
"I ripped out most of the interior of "Skean-dhu" a few years ago and
rebuilt it the way I wanted over the winter. One of the things I discovered
should concern everyone with a Chrysler 26 [editor's note: may be applicable
to other Chrysler classes as well].
The aft end of the starboard chain plate is held down to the ledge behind
the seat backs with a very weak and simple aluminum fitting fastened with
woodscrews! I found that the two screws had pulled completely out of the
fiberglass from years of tuning the rig and would definitely cause fatigue of
the deck at that point aside from the fact that it would scew the efforts of
anyone trying to evenly tighten both sides of the rigging. I made a new lower
end bracket from angle iron to capture the aluminum tubing and then used large
toggle bolts to fasten the fitting to the ledge behind the seat back. Problem
solved and continues to hold well.
The port side is the same fastening, but the large aluminum angle under
the decking to which the chain plates are bolted is two piece instead of the
one as on the starboard side and probably has less flexing due to it's being
fastened to the bulkhead. Well, I couldn't stand the inequity so I made a
slot in the bulkhead and replaced those two pieces with one longer one and
used my new fastening system for the port side as well.
Thought you might like to hear about it. More to follow!"
I hope that this page has proven helpful to you in learning how to reinforce
the chain plate on your boat. If you have any other ideas you would like to
share with other Chrysler owners, please feel free to contact me by clicking
on the E-mail button in the left frame.