Pulpit attached

Today has been spent doing a job that I hadn't anticipated.taking so long.  When I bought Ciao Bella the Pulpit was attached, however the starboard side was adrift. It had been bent in a collision and the previous owner had spent a long time straightening it, but hadn't re-attached it.  Early on in my tenure, I had forced it to fit and bolted it down. Since removing it last weekend it became apparent that this is the likely cause is the soggy interior.
So today I sanded back the GRP that I had thrown together last week as the light was disappearing.  I thought I was going to have to spend a lot of time digging this out and starting again but miraculously it had set and once the sander had done it's work it looked quite presentable.
Where the old GRP had fallen out in one lump the definition of the edges had disappeared and become a flat sanded finish.  I dragged out my Dremel and used a bit which looked a bit like router and carefully
put the shape and the edge back in.

As the mounting plates were far from flat, I assume they would cause high pressure point on the GRP. I decided to put marine ply pads under the mounting plates . The pads should hopefully spread the load. The pads were jigsawed out of some of the pukka 9mm marine ply that I used for the floors and washboards, I shaped the backs, with a rasp, to fit against the toe rail and stuck them in place with a thick bed of Sikaflex.

 I then left them for a hour or so to grip.  On my return from chauffeuring duty I offered the pulpit up and marked where I would drill one hole on the front starboard foot.  I loosely bolted this up then splayed the pulpit so that the front port foot was in position. I then marked the three holes for the front port and the remaining two holes for the front starboard.  Once the two front feet had been secured I set about marking the rear feet holes. There is a fair bit of spring in this rail and it needed persuading into place, however as the holes were being drilled to fit this rail as is I didn't need to try to twist the feet to fit pre collision holes. 

Once all the machine screws were in place with a nut and washer under them I nicked them up just enough to squeeze out a bit of Sikaflex. I shall leave them like this to set until next week end when I shall remove them again to varnish the pads, squidge some gunk under the screw heads and run the wiring for the front nav lights.