Chain plates are out, now what?

[Brion Toss]

Hi there,
First, I am glad you took the surveyor's recommendation; we often have difficulty convincing clients to remove their chainplates for inspection, even though about a third of all dismastings are due to chainplate failure, usually due to damage that is invisible when they are in place.
Your chainplates, at about 20 years of age, are prime candidates for an inspection.
"... perfect, bright and shiny and smooth ..." sounds good, but as it happens chainplates and other stainless items can look wonderful to the naked eye, and particularly to the untrained eye; you need magnification to be certain, and to know what you are seeing through the scope. There is a good chance that your chainplates are completely fine, especially if the original quality was good, the dimensions correct, the relative loads as designed, the tune somewhere near right, the climate the boat has lived in mild, and the installation done right. But of course, that's a lot of if's .
As it happens, I am very good at looking at chainplates, so my shop is one option. You might also check with Lynne Reister, my favorite surveyor. She's in Seattle, or with any qualified metallurgist. I always try to avoid throwing away gear because of uncertainty about its condition, but if you can't get a definitive answer from somebody, replacement could be cheap insurance, assuming that the new plates are made and installed correctly.
Fair leads,
Brion Toss