: I'm building a Redfish Spring Run from a kit and very close to mating the
: deck to the hull. The kit includes "soft pad eyes" for attaching
: the deck bungie cords. The "soft pad eye" is nothing more that
: 3/4" web material that has been doubled over to form about a 2"
: loop and the ends have been melted together. The attachment is via cutting
: a 3/32" x 3/4" slot in the hull at the various attachment points
: and pulling the "soft pad eye" loop through the slot from the
: inside. The melted edge is pulled tight up against the inside of the hull
: and is sealed with silicon calk.

: For those of you who have build many boats, what's your opinion of the best
: way to attach the deck lines? Is the "soft pad eye" approach a
: good way to do it?

: Thanks for any insights and opinions you may have.

: Bob Beaullieu

I used that method, soft padeyes, on my Disko Bay. Overall works fine, it is somewhat time consuming making them up, but no biggy. Biggest problem is over coming the fear of cutting a whole bunch of slots in the nearly complete deck

Even though the epoxy can soften at high temperatures, there's quite alot of epoxy and I put mine thru a small wood block first then epoxied them to that block, so would have to soften, pull the material and the staples holding them to the block out and then thru the slot in the wood block then thru the slot in the deck before the deck lines would come loose, I'm not real worried.

The soft padeyes look great on the deck, have nothing hard on the deck for your hands to to hit and are fairly easy to repair. I'm very happy with the deck lines done this way.

Bill H.