Drogue Chain Plates and Life Raft

[senorquill]

Gents,

I've been working on some Off-Shore projects for this sailing season. I'm not doing anything to big, but I'll be heading from Destin FL to the Dry Tortugas 400nm direct across the Gulf of Mexico in May. For this season I got an Off-Shore life raft (Revere Regatta 4p), IridiumGo, and a Jordan Series Drogue. For the drogue I didn't trust the cleats on the aft, there are only 2 bolts holding them down, they are small and have small washers on them, plus there would be tons of chaffing in that configurations.

I ended up using 5/8" chain plates on the outside of the hull with large 5/8" thick Stainless Steel backing plates inside the hull. The plates are attached with ½" bolts and 2" washers, all SS. I used 3M 4200 in the holes and all over the chain plates and backing plates; no way it is leaking. Ocean Brake built my drogue, I believe it is 105 Cones.  It feels over built to me which is what I wanted, I would imagine it would tear the back of boat off before that system broke. I'm a single-hander, so in the rare event I had to deploy it I want to just set it and forget it. Now I just need to go onto the gulf and practice retrieving it one time.

V/R,

MQ