I then moved to the DS strap. I retained the fitting from the old tube which is basically three bolts welded to a stainless plate. It was alot easier to use this kind of an arrangement as the alternative would be to make up three compression tubes, and have 3 through bolts on either side.

After alot of drilling i was able to get the new strap mounted, and cut to size. The objective was to have the end of the strap be exactly 12 1/4 inches from the end of the tube to ensure a proper fit on the hull, my tolerance was <1/16 of and inch again. With a sigh of relief i moved on to the bolt eyes.

In order for the understay arrangemnt to work i needed side to side support for the pole to have the whole thing work sans bridle foil. I got 2 grade 9 bolts and 2 screw on eyes, and attached them at both ends of the pole, just above the DS strap. the eyes have a breaking strength of 3800 lbs, so i should be good.

Finally, i pulled everything off, and build compression tubes for the DS bolt, amd the two pole shroud support eyes. Getting the compression tube for the DS centered on a 9/16 hole, 6 feet down a 4 inch tibe was.... interesting....swearing was involved.

After that i put the whole thing back together, tensioned the DS to put prebend in the tube, and the front crossmember is done!

Note- i selected a DS bolt with 180,000 PSI tensile strength, 2.4 times stronger than stock, which should handle additional loading from the design.


That's all for now. I'm having a party on saturday, and will be enlisting the attendees to help me install the finished cross member.