Grab rails

The grab rails that came with the boat were pretty much a lost cause. They were worn through in a couple of places around the bolts and were in generally bad shape. My original thinking was to have starboard replacements made but the cost of doing that was a bit much. Someone suggested steel and the price for those was about the same. Luckily I found some at the consignment shop for $25 each! So we pulled the old rails off and filled in the holes with epoxy. We drilled new holes larger than they needed to be and filled those in with epoxy and drilled the proper sized hole in the epoxy. If water gets in there then it won't get into the wood core. For some more info and cutaway pictures see here. Lots of other good information on this site as well.

The final result does not look as good as the teak grab rails but they will require less maintenance and took fewer holes into the deck. So I am going to learn to live with it. Also it will be less likely that I bash my toe on these. :)