Happy Spring!
I was just getting my Wave ready for the season yesterday, taking it off its trailer and stepping the mast, and I noticed that both eyestraps at the fore of both hulls (where the forestays connect) where loose.
I gave the straps a quick tighten with a screwdriver, and then I also noticed that the screw heads had been a little stripped so it was hard to get a good tighten.
So this got me a little worried that although now they're pretty tight, my mast is going to come down at some inopportune time. My Wave is only a year old, bought new, and still under the 2 year warranty.
Can I just buy new screws and replace them, or is there some plate in the hull that will fall out if I try to chnage them? Is this loosening normal?
The bolts will occasionally loosen up if the original assembler didn't use Loc-Tite on the threads, as the instructions say. A little tube of Blue Loc-Tite should have been included with the boat.
The nuts are molded into the hull, so they won't fall through if you remove the bolts.
Just be sure to use stainless hardware, and match the thread and length when you replace them.
I bought a boat from Brad at Sunjammers in Panama City, and the bolts had pulled out. You should contact him for how he fixed it. It was pretty ingenious.
I think the answer to the initial poster's question is LocTite. However, my Wave dismasted in relatively heavy winds when one of the forestay bolts pulled free of the hull. Hobie replaced the whole hull, and I was told by the retailer that there was a batch of the brass fittings which are molded into the hull which had been failing at a surprising rate. The retailer used a tap to deepen the threading on the unaffected hull to try to ward off the problem there. Has anyone else seen this?