Broken fairlead bolt
Dear all,
I have left Swante in Lagos, Portugal for about one month, and on my return I noticed that the forward fairlead bolt on the port side of the bow has broken, see the enclosed pic. This would seem to me to be a fairly straight forward repair, drilling out the remains of the old arrangement, and replacing. Any comment on the procedure will be appreciated.
Kind regards,
Terje.

It happened to me a couple of years ago and it was not a difficult job. There are only few notes:
1) finding a new fairlead with exactly the same shape and size is not easy, if you need indications I may find what I got that was pretty close. For aesthetic reasons unfortunately you will have to change both.
2) I am afraid you will need a friend possibly small to help you but, I repeat, it is not a big deal maybe half an hour work.
3) at that time I used some messy sika caulking, if I had to do it again I would use a first quality butyl compound.
Daniel, 411/004

Sorry, I just noticed that the problem regards only the bolt. Much easier, just clean the bore with a drill and use a new similar bolt with new caulking!
Just to be safe I would change also the second bolt.
Daniele, 411/004

A slight modification to Daniel's suggestion (after you drill the hole)... If you have a tap set, you can re-thread the hole to the original diameter and thread size. That way, you maintain the original strength of the connection.

Don 411/11

I think that it would be advisable to use bolts long enough to go through the deck and fix them with oversize washers and nuts from below. In my boat it was already like that, there were no threaded bores.
Daniel, 411/004

Even better! I missed that part about through bolts.

Don

Indeed a stronger arrangement but you will need a small and willing person to do the unconfortable job from underneath!
If I recall well the bolts diameter is 8 mm; I would advise against smaller bolts.
Daniel, 411/004