CONTINUOUSWAVE

I have a 16 CURRITUCK I'm in the process of restoring. I've owned the boat for six years and bought side rails and stanchions for it five years ago.

The rails and T-fittings are stainless steel and in good shape.

The rail stanchions, standoff, and base fittings are brass and all chrome or stainless appears to have worn off.

Why would rail stanchion, standoff, and base fittings be brass?

Were they brass from factory?

I want to get them back up to a stainless-look.

I am unsure on how to tackle this without having them professionally chromed or replaced.

The boat won’t be in show room conditions. It will be staying in the water nine months a year.

I'm just trying to get the boat back to how it was .

I appreciate the help and knowledge of this forum.

—Sam

The rail post base is actually an oarlock The oarlock is mounted upside down. When Dick Fisher was showing his new boats at a boat show in Chicago, they did not have rails. Another exhibitor was impressed with the boat, but he thought it needed rails. He made boat fittings. During the show he bent some tubing and demonstrated to Fisher his idea for the rails, improvising the inverted oarlock as the base. Fisher liked the idea, and began to use it.

I got this story from the guy that showed this idea to Fisher. We met by chance in the parking lot of a restaurant along the Cheboygan River one evening several years ago. There was an old Boston Whaler in the parking lot, and we were both admiring it. The old guy then began this story of how the rails came to be designed in an impromptu manner at a boat show. He was from Michigan and had been in the boating business for years, but was now long retired.

He was leaving and we were arriving. I was hoping to follow up with him, but I was not able to make contact with him again.

I doubt the oarlock was chrome plated.

Perhaps someone with an older 16-footer can comment.