Gangway damage

Hi All

we notied that we have what appears like corrosion/galvanic damage on the boat-end of our gangway. It's only on one side of the kind of the sleece of the 'axle' that holds both the pivot pin for attachment to the deck and the little wheels.

It looks like the corrosion started from the inside of the sleeve and then, due to aluminium oxide having a larger volume than aluminium, resulted in the splitting of the sleeve ...

Hope this makes sense, probably best to look at the photos below. Unfortunately, I do not know if this is a recent damage or has been like this already when we bought Kairos in 2017.

I noted that the undamaged side/sleeve has what appears to be an anode attached to it. If the damage was caused by some stray electric current between land and boat, could this be the reason why the side with the anode is still intact? 

While I hope the replacement is relatively straight forward i.e. just an anodised aluminium sleeve, I was wondering if anyone had a similar issue before and maybe has some advise how to avoid this happening again (soon).

Thank you & fair winds,

Stefan

SY Kairos (57/043)

Gangway

Gangway close

Gangway detail