I have a 1984
Ericson 38' that I've been scheming to re-rig for a while. One of my outstanding decisions is regarding the Navtec T-balls on the shrouds and. I'm wondering if anyone has replaced their Navtec T-balls with through bolted tangs, or if anyone can point me to a resource for best practice. Mainly I'm wondering if this could be accomplished with out drilling out new holes in the
mast and just using the existing T-ball cutouts. And if so should I leave the
backing plates in for added support or remove the
backing plates in favor of a larger through bolt. Here are my thoughts:
I'm looking at the size of my existing t-ball backing plates, the clevis pins at the bottom of my shrouds, and
compression tubes (available from rigrite
Compression Tubes).
Currently all the pins for my shrouds at the
deck are 1/2" or less. All my shrouds have the GIB 740-7 sized backing plate which has a 5/8" wide slot. Rigrite sells a
compression tube (K-9632) with 1/2" I.D. and 5/8" O.D.
I'm wondering if there would be any issues simply using a 1/2" through bolt with that compression tube leaving the backing plates? I assumed it would be ideal to leave the backing plates in as it couldn't hurt to have the
mast wall reinforced.
Removing the plate would would leave a 7/8" wide cutout which (from looking at Rigrites site) would allow me to use through bolts as large as 3/4".
I've attached a sketch of my proposed plan. Any input would be greatly appreciated.