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I am looking to seal the point in the deck where the chain plates come through. I've heard several ideas. What are yours? I sail in the Great Lakes so there is no problem with salt.
Now on to how to seal them. Im in the same boat as you. How do you seal them? Ive been told to seal the bottom side and fill the hole with epoxy. I'm going to give this a try on mine. 3M 5200 doesn't work, see above picture.
In my view, the sealant will have to be flexible and thus I wouldn't use an epoxy. Every time the sails load up the rig, the chain plates flex and if the sealant doesn't flex along with it, it'll simply start to leak again.
I used Sikaflex on my starboard chain plates and left them for a few months before doing the port ones. They appear to be sealed well and no more leaks.
However, before re-bedding the chainplates, make sure that the deck around the chainplates is properly sealed if the deck is cored. If the deck isn't properly sealed by removing the core material and back filling the space with thickened epoxy, you're going to get deck delamination from the core material getting wet. This is very, very important to check.
I know this adds nothing to the solution, but this was the main reason I got external chain plates with attachment bolts that were visible and easily accessed from the boat interior. Who ever designs these boat have zero foresight into the maintenance of such critical boat parts such as chain plates. Putting a chain plate through a deck is just asking for trouble and then putting cabinentry all around the chain plate bolts on the interior just adds insult to injury.
Other than that, I have no views on the subject.
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