Cross-bar slop tech-pics for discussion

I got a long 1/4 hex drive with a 3/8 drive for tightening the bolts, which works great. Unfortunately, they didn't seem to be very loose.

Next I put a strap around one hull at the balance point and lifted it off the trailer. I could then push push down ahead or behind the balance point to apply some twisting load. By putting one finger bridging from the beams to the fiberglass I could feel the end of the outer end of the beams going up and down and the angle of the whole beam rotating relative to the hull. Not good.

The boat is now on the grass And I'm getting ready to start taking things apart. There are also some surface cracks in the gel coat in corners near the beams. I'll just have to see how bad things look when it's all apart.

By the way, I think I did notice one thing when sailing the boat. I'm wondering if this makes sense. On a reach with weight back and the most twisting load, using the trap seems to reduce twist. I didn't realize this until I saw it, but I think it makes sense. On the trap you pretty much just put horizontal loads on the hull, so you're not pushing down on the stern of the windward hull. You and the wire are more directly resisting the sail loads. Upwind when you are forward I don't think it makes any difference. I think.

First time I've split the hulls and beams. Much easier than I feared. Some previous owner tried to tighten up the end casting to fiberglass joint with RTV. That did not do much and only one showed any resistance when I pulled the casting off.

In addition to epoxying the casting to the fiber glass, it seems like it would be important to also fill the gap around the two pins. The plan is to use filled epoxy for everything. I've thought about going up one size on the screws since the holes seem very close to stripped out. They would also do more to locate if they were flat heads, not pan head. I suspect neither step is really needed. Locking the pins in place seems like the biggest improvement, but I'm still a little worried about the integrity of the nearby fiberglass.

It is good to make progress. New sail and tramp will be showing up soon, but the summer is passing me by!

You can definitely up-size the screws. You can also add a third screw if you only have two. The earlier boats had two screws and later boats had three.

sm