J/30 Class Association Forums J/30 Forum The Boat, Sails and Equipment table installation and legs

Hi,,

On Defender I have never installed the table. I bought her with the table being a well preserved stored piece. I never tried to put it on til this weekend and I know nothing about it. The table legs seems way to long and I must be missing something for the holes in the bilge board.How long are these legs supposed to be and is one really longer than the other

Admittedly, it is embarrassing to sail well on Wednesday nights but not know the basics about something that should be simple on my boat.

Assuming there on no questions too dumb to ask...can anyone enlighten me?

Thanks

Barry
Defender
Black Rock Harbor, CT.

All the best

the legs are not the same length mine which are orginal are 39 1/2 and 41 3/4 long not sure which one goes forward when installed the legs go all the way to the bottom of the bilge.

They do look tall but remember they insert all the way to the top of the table

I recommend that you put some silcone grease or simliar on the legs when installing them they have been know to get stuck (The tube corodes in place)

My aluminum tubes were frozen in place when I bought Radiant #255, so I removed the teak floorboard and used a pipe cutter to cut them as low as possible to their entry in the bilge. I then bought two pieces of 24" galv. pipe to insert in the tubes and built it up with pattern makers mylar for a tight fit. The table legs are now removable for racing.

I too cut off the legs at the base with a dremmel. I looked at having some wooden legs made for the table, either as replacement legs or inserts for the existing legs. I did not want to use metal legs due to the corrosion issue as I experienced with the original design. I finally went with PCV pipes as inserts in the existing legs and that fit in the holes above the keel. The PCV pipe didn't seem strong enough, so I got a smaller diameter PCV pipe that was a tight fight inside the original PCV pipe. This worked fine.

I have probably used the table about 5-10 times in the 30 years I have owned the boat. The most use the table gets is me taking it off the boat every time I go sailing. But if I ever want to use it, I can get the legs in and out with no problem.

My wife loves the table, so when living aboard (which we are doing this season)the table stays. When racing, the table sits in my truck...