Replace or Remove Spray Rails

[Safari]

The wooden spray rails on my f36 are rotted to oblivion. Has anyone replaced or removed theirs? I'm thinking of replacing mine with cedar, but lining up the holes looks like a major issue.......

[Dan Faith]

I have not done it yet but I am looking at doing it on my 30 ft sport fisherman. I will use the old splash rails as a patern and mark the holes from the inside onto the new piece will mark the old on the hull before I remove then align new and use a small drill to march each hole. Hardest part will be achieving the proper angle. I will use white oak, cedar would be too soft on the 30 the fenders rest on this rail at dock.

[gjrylands]

I replaced the splash rail on my F36. I did it several years ago so memory may be a bit fuzzy.

I wouldn't use cedar, it's too soft. White oak would work, but it very hard and difficult to shape. I used what Trojan used, Mahogany.

The splash rail is through bolted and screwed from the inside. Remove the stainless rub rail from the splash rail. Once it’s off you will be able to see where the carriage bolts are located. I don’t remember exactly how many there are, but I would think there are 4-6 bolts. (If the location of the carriage bolts is not obvious sand some paint off the edge of the splash rail to expose the filler.) Once you know where the bolts are located you will know where to look for nuts in the bilge. Between the bolts there are screws, screwed from inside the bilge, holding the splash rail. In order to gain access to some of the screws the plywood on the air intake vent will have to be removed. I used a saw to cut the plywood and pieced it back after the splash rail was re-installed. (I reused the carriage bolts, but used new screws.)

Once the splash rail was removed, I used it as a template to get the shape and the location of the carriage bolts. The carriage bolts make installing the new splash rail easy. The holes in the hull were over size so the bolts slide right through. (I applied a good bead of Boatlife caulk to the back of the splash rail before I installed it. (If you use 3M’s 5200 it will make removal difficult.) Once the bolts are tightened, you can put the screws in to finish securing the rail. After cleaning the caulk that oozed out, I used fiberglass bondo to fill bolt holes. After sanding and painting I re-installed the stainless rub rail.