Making Composite Stanchion Sockets

Like any other boat from this era, Paikea came into our possession with the rather agricultural-looking stainless steel stanchion sockets. They were structurally sound however, they were an eyesore and had caught one or two toes since we had moved onboard. The inside attachment of the stanchion socket wasn’t much better with nasty-looking bolts protruding into the hull roof spaces. Worse yet, they had begun to leak where the bolts had moved and the sika was no longer sealing it.

So while we were upgrading the interior, and stripping out all the lining in order to paint, it seemed like the perfect timing to put in some nicer composite stanchion sockets.

Stanchions are a safety feature so was not a matter of finding the cheapest solution or quickest solution to our stanchion upgrade. There things you NEVER compromise on and SAFETY is one of them.

We have 2 main references that we use when we are planning any new modification to Paikea.

For this modification it was the World Sailing Offshore Special Regulations (OSR) https://www.sailing.org and parts of the ISO – Standards ISO 15085:2024(en) Small craft — Protection from falling overboard and means of reboarding https://www.iso.org/standards.html

Other sources to cover this topic that are North American related is the ABYC H-41 REBOARDING MEANS, LADDERS,HANDHOLDS, RAILS AND LIFELINES

The following investigations which we referenced in our video on making composite stanchion sockets can be found at World Sailing. There were instrumental in our decision of which materials we would use in our project.

Given the fact that Stanchions are a safety feature of any boat, the strength of the socket arrangement and the type of materials used for the stanchion were priority.

Given the findings of the above reports published in the World Sailing website, there are really only two options for Stanchion material choice – S-Glass (the composite option shown in the image above) or Stainless Steel. Due to the way in which Carbon Fibre fails, it is not recommended as an option for Stanchions. Since S-Glass stanchions are expensive, we decided on new Stainless Steel Stanchions.

Our choice of stanchion socket was to go with the composite recessed stanchion socket. This is a much stronger solution than a spigot arrangement. The below picture is of an eglass spigot failure.

So, given the above findings, we decided on Stainless Steel stanchions with carbon fibre socket arrangement. To make the sockets we used carbon fibre tube with an inner OD of 27mm from Easy Composites https://www.easycomposites.eu/30mm-roll-wrapped-carbon-fibre-tube-metric. We used the release wax from Easy Composites then wrapped the stainless steel stanchion with e-glass and covered it with peel ply. To consolidate the laminate we used electrical tape and then post cured the tube using a small bathroom heater. The heating and cooling is very important. We need the resin to cure while the stainless steel is in the expanded condition (ie when the stainless tube is hot) When the stainless steel cools they eglass tube will stay at the larger dimension making it easer to release from the stainless tube. We are talking very small differences but it’s enough to allow for the resin shrinkage and allows us to remove eglass part from stanchion.

Once we had made the insulating e-glass sleeve we glued it inside the carbon tube and then glued the tube into the deck. We used Spabond a rubber toughened epoxy to glue the carbon tube in place. PVC foam was used to form gussets to support the carbon tube on the lower end of the socket. We designed and 3D printed a cap with a drainage system to plug the end of the carbon tube and allow for water to drain from the base of the socket. Once all this was in place we could then laminate some carbon cloth to both the topside and underneath pieces.