Chain plates are out, now what?

[Matthew Sebring]

I second Brion's thoughts on thise. I've personally sailed aboard a boat that lost one of it's chainplates. This was a Merrit 25 with the plates passing through the deck and above and below decks they looked but right where they passed through they'd rotted away. The rigging shop I used to work at had a very large bin full of chainplates so far gone that most i'd be able to break with my bare hands. Crevice corrosion is an amazingly destructive but, to the untrained eye, difficult to spot thing. Most people just assume that chainplates are forever (hence the mixed advice you're getting) but that's simply not the case. Worst case scenario at this point is that you've wasted a little time and effort removing the old ones, on the other hand worst case scenario for not pulling them is missing a bad plate and losing your rig. An ounce of prevention.