The
old toe rail was so damaged that after much discussion and searching,
I imported new pieces from France directly to Guatemala. I used the
Goiot model 811 rail. Of course I also needed new stanchion bases
and fairleads to match that style. It was cheaper to buy the rails
from one of the big chandleries in France and have them shipped
directly to Guatemala than to buy them in the US. It helped to have
a friend in France to oversee that part of the process, since it took
about 5 months to get them here; even sending them by air freight.
The
deck-hull joint was a disaster. This was one of the big surprises
from Wauquiez. The original toe rails must have been put on the boat
before the interior was installed, because they were through-bolted,
then the bolts were cut off even with the nuts, and finally the whole
thing was fiberglassed. I don't think they caulked anything, relying
on the fiberglass to make a watertight seal. Unfortunately this was
one source of the leaks that had plagued us for years. The
dimensions of the new toe rail were significantly different than the
old one, and we had to rebuild the entire joint to make the new one
fit. I had my favorite machine shop cut two offset gauges from
aluminum plate so there would be no excuses for a poor fit. After
all the usual chamfering, Dremeling, plugging and sanding, after the
topsides and hull were gelcoated and the shear stripe was painted, I
installed the new toe rail by drilling and tapping the deck-hull
joint, then bolted the new rail in place using 3M 5200 as the
adhesive sealant over the entire length of the new rail.
Here's what it looked like right after the rail came off
After the clean-up
In case you wondered what was under the stern teak
The re-built joint
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