Dave,

It is a real bugger to get those nuts on.  Unfortunately Steve's wife Lulu was not available to help me so I resorted to duct tape and a openend wrench.  I placed the nut in the openend wrench and put a piece of duct tape on the opposite side of the openend to hold the nut in the wrench.   Then an assistant on the outside turned the bolt while I tried to get the nut positioned correctly and treaded, we managed to get everything bolted back in place.  As I recall there were quite a few salty sailorly words spoken during the process.

Its been a number of years since I rebeded those stanchions, in recalling the adventure I think I may have put a slight bend in the openend wrench to aid in the process.  I also remember a small mirror being used to look up into the bulwark. 

Take a close look at the stanchions before your reinstall them, or better yet mark them before you remove them.  There is a difference between the forward most and other stanchions.  The forward most stanchion has a spacer welded into the base that moves the stanchion inboard slightly and keeps it upright rather than angling outboard.

This is also a good time to rebed your mooring cleats if they are mounted on the bulwarks.

Kevin

Dave,

I have seen boats where the owners have thru bolted stanchions and cleats thru the bulwarks, so that is a possibility.  The layup of the hull and deck are strong enough to support the loads on the stanchions.  Ideally you would have spacers inside the bulwarks to prevent compression from over tightening.  BUT, you will also be introducing three more holes per stanchion on the outside of the hull and those three holes will have the possibility of leaking at some point.  The fewer holes in your boat the better...

The backing plate idea is sound and was used by a number of Asian builders during the 80's, it works.  But you will still have to figure out how to get the plate glued up into place(...5200 maybe...?) in the bulwark so you can drill and tap it.  5200 takes 72 hours to dry completely.  I suspect you can get those 12 bolts and nuts installed in less than 72 hours.

My suggestion is you just accept that this is going to take a few hours to do correctly, but you likely won't have to do it again in your lifetime.  Some projects just take lots of time to do correctly and don't give much visual reward when done.  Aahhhhh, but the satisfaction of a job well done is......well....nevermind...!

Kevin