Swim Platform Padeye Repair

During our shakedown cruise, May 18-19, I noticed that the padeye supporting the swim platform on the port side was pulling out.

That was something I needed to take care of before our spring cruise which was going to lead into our trip to Maine.  I could not leave that waiting to fail.  With such a short window, it was impossible to find someone to do the work for me.  Fortunately, I had access to Bob Peahl and his tools.  Tartan customer service provided me an engineering document for the swim platform that indicated a 3/8" 3" x 8" aluminum plate embedded in the epoxy at the padeyes. 

He lent me his impact driver (I didn't even know what one was until he showed it to me).  At first the bolt didn't budge.  Clearly, the stainless steel bolt was solidly locked into the aluminum plate.  I first tried a soldering iron to heat up the bolt, but my laser heat sensor didn't show a very high temperature on the bold head when I removed the iron.  Then I used a pinpoint tourch to heat up the bolt  and eventually the gelcoat underneath the padeye started smoldering...I guess that was as hot as it was going to get.  Finally, the impact driver twisted the head right off the bolt.

 To get the bold out, I used the smallest hole saw that Bob had to remove a bit of the epoxy down to the aluminum plate.  That allowed me to get in with vice grips to grab the bold.  I still could not get it out and was only destroying the exposed part of the bold.  Bob suggested I use a crescent wrench to turn the vice grips after locking them down as hard as possible. The vice grips rotated a bit, but I couldn't tell if the bolt was turning.  It turned out the bold was turning and I eventually got it out.

 I decided I also needed to clean up the hole where the bold had pulled out.  In doing so, I discovered that there was no aluminum plate where that hole was located.

Here you can see the two padeye bolt locations.

The padeye was bent from the uneven load...I was going to need a new padeye.

I drilled some exploratory holes with a small bit to find where the aluminum plate ended.  Then I filled both existing holes using G-Flex with a thickener and white pigment.  Then, with the new padeye, drilled and tapped two new holes through the swim platform epoxy and the aluminum plate below the surface.

 I didn't think I would be able to get a rigger to come to the boat to build the cable.  So decided to use dyneema.  I was fortunate to run into John Wickens at Fawcetts's.  He told me what kind of knot I should use.  Estar hitch (variation on buntline hitch): https://www.animatedknots.com/buntline-hitch-knot
It took me several tries to get it the correct length to balance the other side, but seems to be a good solution.

Soon after we got the boat, we had St. Augustine Marine Center repair the padeye on the starboard side where it was pulling out.  I wonder what they did!