With the old deck hatch removed its time to start refitting the foredeck.

The original fittings on the foredeck were not very strongly mounted.  The bollard for example had 4 bolts, the rear 2 drilled through a deck beam and the forward 2 just through 12mm ply.  Although the bollard had not ripped out of the boat, the loads pulling it forward had depressed the section of ply just forward of it causing it to buckle the deck.

We were also fitting a cutter stay and needed a new attachment point for that, and moving the anchor winch further back to bring the weight of anchor and chain aft.

We decided to combine the fixing of all these fittings into one unit that would spread the load across the entire foredeck and down through a bulkhead to the hull itself.

To do this, 2 planks of hardwood are mounted on top of the deck, and bolted through the deck to another 2 running under the deck beams.   This photo shows the fittings being positioned on the planks.