Michael wrote:

I'll start this one without a comment but with questions.

a. How tall (length of vertical piping) are the stanchions on your boat?

On our little boat (19' LOA), they're 20" high. The perfect height for
tripping you up... but the idea is to give a solid handhold (which they do)
not to enable carelessness.

I much prefer 30" stanchions with double lifelines. A bit harder to step over
but they are much less likely to trip up the crew working on deck.

The tugboat has 26" bulwarks all around with a handrail above that fore &
aft. It's nice for keeping dropped stuff, pets & small children, aboard.




b. Diameter of stanchions is?

1" which is IMHO minimum. The tapered stanchions look cool.

Another issue is how the stanchion bases are constructed, and how they are
fastened. Sockets are bad. Welded base plates are bad unless lugged (which
you can't tell without cutting it open). Lag screws are bad. Bolts without
backing plates are bad. Bolts through cored fiberglass are bad. In short,
there are a lot of bad ways to mount stanchions (and you'll see them all on a
short dock walk) but not many good ways.

The little boat has an odd way of mounting the stanchions, they are carried
down alongside the side of the raised deck and bolted though the topsides.
Hunter did that detail right, they are very solid. I've seen some European
boats that had their lifeline stanchions mounted in a similar way, but it
takes either some tumblehome or a thick rub rail or they get banged against
everything coming alongside.

Fresh Breezes- Doug King