On Thu, 17 Jan 2008 15:51:26 -0800 (PST), "
wrote:

But, the steel beam in question was inside a
box beam molded into the liner and under the main bulkhead. There was
really no way to inspect it without tearing up the interior.

Since the box beam is mostly non-structural, you can cut an inspection
window into the forward side (in the head), and cover it up with a
"decorative" piece of teak. When we re-rigged my 34, I cut away about
6 inches of the box beam on each side, totally filled in the cavity
around the steel beam with solid fiberglass, and capped it off with a
custom stainless steel saddle which became the new mast step.