Swim ladder success!

Well I finally got the swim ladder installed. I was thinking it would be one of the easier projects! Well by now I should know that there are no easy projects. This is the finished product.

So the first thing that was an issue with the ladder mounting plates had a little lip on them. So I could not mount it flush to the hull. Plus I wanted to have something to spread the stress out. So I went with some wood. I stained it and wrapped it in fiberglass and epoxy. That should help keep it protected from the water.

The part that was really hard was figuring out how big of a backing support I would need. I couldn't find anything that gave an idea of square inches per pound of pressure or anything like that. So I just figured I would make sure to over build it so it was plenty strong enough.

Some how when I got the 4 stainless steel bolts to put this all together I though 2 inch bolts would be long enough. With the 3/4 inch wood that the ladder is sitting on, plus the 3/4 inch wood for the backing, they where not long enough.

So had to run and get 4 more bolts and pull everything apart. Clean everything up and apply more butyl tape to all the bolts. I ended up with one bolt a lot longer then the rest. So I had to run off and get the right sized bolt. Pull it apart and clean it all up again.

This time everything went together just as expected. Got it all tightened up. Tested it and it held my weight without a problem! So finally a task totally done and complete!