Installing a bow eye?

[Toller]

I just bought a Petrel sailboat. It is 12' long and made of aluminum. Think of it as an aluminum row boat with a sail. It was originally made with a bow eye build into an aluminum casting that covered the junction of the two sides and the top deck, but it broke off some time in the past.
As I measure it, the sides are 0.040" and the strip that joins the two sides is 0.090". It weighs 160 pounds and will eventually be moored on a finger lake in WNY.

Small sail boats usually have U-bolts in the bow. Do you think the boat is likely to be strong enough to be moored using a U-bolt in front?
Would I be better off using a 1/4" bolt to avoid having to drill a large hole, or a 3/8" bolt to spread the stress out more?

 

[Woodonglass]

Do you have access to the interior of the bow? If so you could fabricate a wedge to fit in the V of the bow and then seal it with epoxy. Then drill your holes in the bow and attach the bow eye and tighten it down using the V-Wedge as a backer plate. Thats what us Fiberglass boys do with our boats.

 

[Toller]

Access is terrible; I was actually going to ask the 12 year old across the street to tighten the bolts since I can't really get in there. So getting in to take measurements to make a wedge isn't going to happen. It would be pretty easy though to;
*drill the holes
*coat the Ubolt with wax and stick it in position
*pack the area around the bolt (inside the boat) with epoxy putty
*lightly tighten the nuts up to the epoxy putty

Would that do it?
I could put nuts on the outside of the boat also, and use those to snug it up after the epoxy hardens if the ones inside are frozen.

My first thought was to put the wad of putty in first, let it harden, and then drill the holes; but I am afraid the drilling might knock it out of place. Shouldn't, but might.

 

[Ned L]

Your idea of epoxy should be ok, I would recommend mixing in a lot of chopped / cut up glass material as you can (cloth, matt, CSM, whatever) in order to give the epoxy some real strength (epoxy on its own does not have a great amount of strength... to keep the 'glob' from breaking). just cut some up glass material into small pieces so that it falls apart and then mix the fibers into the epoxy. I wouldn't go as small as 1/4" for the eyebolt.