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⛵️ Watch This BEFORE Removing ENCAPSULATED Chainplates
January 25, 2026 · 34 min · 18K views · Bellingham Marina
What this video covers
A 1989 Liberty 458 named Antidote, undergoing full restoration on a driveway in British Columbia, has encapsulated (internally welded) chainplates that are 35–36 years old — past the 20-to-25-year service interval experts recommend for stainless steel chainplates.7:25 John walks through three chainplate configurations found on fiberglass boats at Bellingham Marina: through-deck inboard plates (roughly 90% of boats surveyed), externally bolted hull-side plates (~8%), and fully encapsulated internal plates (rare, found on Antidote and Island Packets).3:16 He explains the trade-offs — through-deck plates allow tighter headsail sheeting but leak at the deck slot; external plates seal more easily but push shrouds outboard; encapsulated plates eliminate deck penetrations but fail catastrophically and are difficult to remove.1:58 On Antidote, four chainplates per side are welded together across a bulkhead rather than installed individually, complicating extraction.24:08 John removes one forward starboard plate, finds it intact, and uses a FLIR thermal camera to try locating horizontal weld members behind fiberglass.24:38 He also flags a serious safety concern: adhesive used on interior panels may contain asbestos, since Taiwanese boatyards reportedly used asbestos in building materials into the 2010s, and recommends testing before cutting.21:45 The planned solution is converting all chainplates to external hull-mounted plates, using the original encapsulated plates as backing.32:44 One intact plate after 35 years does not confirm the others are safe.
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