US3863588A

US3863588A - Loop device for mounting on boat

Info

Publication number: US3863588A
Application number: US397989A
Authority: US
Inventors: Herman L Gillespie
Original assignee: Individual
Current assignee: EPCO PRODUCTS Inc A CORP OF; GILL-BAUM Manufacturing Co Inc
Priority date: 1973-09-17
Filing date: 1973-09-17
Publication date: 1975-02-04
Anticipated expiration: 1992-02-04

Abstract

An eye or loop assembly for forming a connection between the boat deck and boat bow or stern through the boat hull in which the eye or loop is in the form of a pair of bow-eyes with legs extending completely through the deck and bow or stern and with an inextensible adjustable tension member connected to each boweye inside the hull and stationarily anchored inside the hull of the boat. The arrangement provides for division of the load imposed on the eye or loop thereby greatly reducing the possibility of damaging the boat deck.

Description

ijnited States Patent [1 1 Gillespie [4 1 Feb. 4, 1975 LOOP DEVICE FOR MOUNTING ON BOAT [76] Inventor: Herman L. Gillespie, 2415 Dellwood Dr., Fort Wayne, 1nd. 46803 [22] Filed: Sept. 17, 1973 21 Appl. No.: 397,989

[52] US. Cl. 114/218 [51] Int. Cl B63b 21/04 [58] Field of Search 114/218, 217, 51,50,164,

[56] References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 1,269,523 6/1918 Cheney 114/51 1,664,281 3/1928 Baine 114/51 3,765,365 10/1973 Gillespie 114/218 Primary Examiner-George E. A. Halvosa Assistant Examiner-Charles E. Frankfort Attorney, Agent, or Firm-Albert L. Jeffers; Roger M. Rickert 57 ABSTRACT 10 Claims, 5 Drawing Figures LOOP DEVICE FOR MOUNTING ON BOAT The present invention relates to boats, and is particularly concerned with an arrangement for providing a boat with an eye or loop to which a hook can be connected as, for example, for drawing the boat out of the water. Such loops and hooks can serve other purposes as well, as, for example, the connecting of the boat to a load which it is towing or to another boat which it is towing.

The provision of loops and eyes of the nature referred to on boat decks is known but, heretofore, the device has been anchored to the boat decks and stems so that all load imposed thereon was, in turn, transferred to a limited region of the boat hull, thus. introducing the possibility of damaging the boat deck. It has been attempted to provide reinforcement internally of the hull for such eyes or loops, but such reinforcement has not, heretofore, been satisfactory for the reason that it did not always provide adequate support and sometimes tended to become loose thus losing its effectiveness.

With the foregoing in mind, the primary object of the present invention is the provision of an eye or loop on a boat deck and connected to an eye or loop disposed on the bow or stern being especially adapted for engagement by a hook or cable or the like in which the possibility that heavy loads imposed on the eye or loop will damage the boat deck is eliminated, or greatly re duced.

Another object is the provision of an eye or loop or the like affixed to a boat deck for engagement by a hook or'cable or the like in which the load imposed on the eye or loop is distributed within the boat hull thereby eliminating the possibility that a limited region of the boat deck will be stressed to an extremely high degree.

Another object is the provision of an eye or loop on a boat deck which is supported internally of the hull by adjustable reinforcing means connected to an eye or loop disposed on the bow or stern and does not tend to become loose or ineffective over a period of time.

BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION According to the present invention, an eye or loop is provided on a boat deck by the use of a bow-eye, the legs of which extend through the boat deck. Nuts on the legs of the bow-eye on opposite sides of the hull fix the bow-eye to the hull and, preferably, escutcheon plates or the like are interposed between the nuts and the opposite sides of the boat hull.

The bow-eye thus mounted on the boat deck is provided with a reinforcing support inside the boat hull in the form of an inextensible adjustable tension member, preferably, a chain, which has one end fixed to the bow-eye on the deck and the other end stationarily anchored to a suitable point on the bow or stern and which suitable point, in fact, consists of the inner end of another bow-eye.

The exact nature of the present invention will become more clearly apparent upon reference to the following detailed specification taken in connection with the accompanying drawings in which:

FIG. l is a fragmentary perspective view of a boat showing eyes or loops according to the present invention on the forward part of the deck and bow.

FIG. 2 is a diagrammatic view showing the manner in which a bow-eye is provided with an adjustable reinforcing support internally of the boat hull.

FIG. 3 shows, diagrammatically, a different arrangement for securing the bow-eye in position.

FIG. 4 is a view like FIG. 3 but shows a cable in place of the chain.

FIG. 5 is a perspective view of an eye bolt for use with the FIGS. 3 and 4 arrangements.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION Referring to the drawings somewhat more in detail, FIG. 1 shows a boat having a hull l0 and projecting from the bow ll is at least one bow-eye or loop 12. In FIG. 1, a further bow-eye or loop 14 is mounted on the deck 13 of the boat, but the bow-eye 12 will serve as an example for the present invention. The eye 12 is provided so that the boat can be towed or so that a hook or cable can be connected to the bow-eye 14 for drawing the boat out of the water.

Boats of the nature illustrated are often quite heavy and when pulling the boat out of thewater extreme stress can be developed on the boat deck in the region where the eye or loop 14 is anchored. I-Ieretofore, this has sometimes led to breaking of the boat deck which is, of course, quite expensive and most undesirable.

According to the present invention, the occurrence of damage to the deck is substantially eliminated by re inforcing the bow-eye or loop internally of the hull so that pulling loads exerted on the bow-eye or loop of an amount sufficient to cause deflection of the deck will be transferred to another portion of the boat structure thereby preventing the developing of damaging stess in the boat deck area.

This is advantageously accomplished as shown in FIG. 2 wherein the bow-eye or

loops

12 and 14 will be seen to consist of respective bow-eyes. The bow-eye forming the eye 12 has threaded legs which extend through a first escutcheon plate 16 outside the hull and a second escutcheon plate 18 inside the hull with nuts 20 being provided for fixedly clamping the plates against the bow 11 and also fixing the bow-eye in the plates.

Similarly, the bow-eye forming the eye or loop 14 is provided with an apertured escutcheon plate 22 on the deck and escutcheon plate 24 inside the hull through which the legs of the bow-eye extend with nuts 26 fixedly clamping the bow-eye and plates in position.

According to the present invention, each bow-eye is provided with further plate means, 28 in respect to the bow-eye making up the eye l2, and 30 in respect of the bow-eye 14 making up the eye plate means. Plate means 30 is fixedly clamped in position against the aforesaid nuts 26 by clamp nuts 32 while there is carried on the plate means 30 an anchoring eye-bolt 34. The eye-bolt 34 has a threaded shank and nuts 36 thereon fix the eye-bolt 34 to plate means 30. Plate means 30 is preferably heavier than the above mentioned escutcheon plates but may advantageously be formed by a stack of the escutcheon plates.

Similarly, mounted on the legs of the bow-eye making up the eye 12 is the aforementioned plate means 28 held in place by the nuts 38. There is a further anchoring eye-bolt 40 attached to plate :means 28 by the nut 42.

Extending between eye-

bolts

34 and 40 is a length of chain 42 which forms a tension element 41.

In practice, after the bow-eyes are fixed in place in the structure of the boat, preferably with the closed outer ends of the bow-eyes projecting outwardly from the boat hull, the reinforcing device consisting of chain 42, eye-

bolts

34 and 40, and plate means 28 and 30 is put in place. The eye-bolts may be initially adjusted in the plate means 28 and 30 and thereafter fixed in place, as by peening over the ends of the eye-bolts and thereafter the desired tension is developed in chain 42'by final adjustment of nuts 38 to place proper tension on the chain 42.

These nuts may also be locked to the respective threaded legs of the pertaining bow-eye, as by using self-locking nuts or the like.

In any case, once installed, the tension element 41 will remain taut and will not become loose and can be depended on to transmit substantial loads imposed on either of the bow eyes to the other whereby no limited region of the boat structure is stressed to an extremely high degree.

It should be noted that the

legs

7 and 9 of the bow eye 12, and the legs and 17 of the bow eye 14 are closely spaced to each other. This arrangement of spacing is particularly advantageous in that when a load is placed on bow eye 14 and force is transmitted to the chain 42 through the

eye bolts

34 and 40 the

plates

30 and 28 will not bend or buckle because of the relatively small spacing 25 between the legs of the bow eye and the eye bolt. The arrangement as disclosed provides for a division of the load imposed upon the bow eye wherein loads of up to 6,000 pounds can be obtained on each bow eye without damaging the boat deck.

In FIG. 3, a bow-eye 50 on deck 52 and a bow-eye 54 on bow 56 are interconnected by a tension element in the form of chain 58. The eye bolt pertaining to boweye 50, however, has the eye portion 60 bent off from the shank portion 62 so the eye portion is in alignment with chain 58. An angle of bend off of about 45 is suitable. The strength of the eye bolt to resist tension in the chain is greatly increased by the bending off of the eye portion whereby the strength of the entire device is increased.

The eye bolt is shown in perspective in FIG. 5.

In FIG. 4, the tension element is in the form of a cable 64 which has one end entrained through the eye of straight eye bolt 66 pertaining to bow-eye 68 in the bow of the boat and the other entrained through the eye of bent off eye bolt pertaining to bow-eye 69 in the boat deck.

The free ends of cable 64 are clamped to the cable by cable clamps 70.

Modifications may be made within the scope of the appended claims.

What is claimed is:

I. A device for mounting on a boat and providing at least one loop for engagement by a hook, said device comprising: a first bow eye having legs adapted to extend through the deck of the boat, nuts for threading on the legs for connecting the bow eye to the deck, a tension member, first means connecting one end of said tension member to said first bow eye legs inside the hull of the boat, a second bow eye having legs adapted for extending through the boat and further nuts for theading on the legs of said second bow eye to connect the said bow eye to the boat, second means connecting the other end of said tension member to said second bow eye legs inside the hull of the boat whereby a tension load imposed on a bow eye outside the boat will be borne, at least in part, by said tension member.

2. A device according to claim 1 wherein said first and second means includes plates adapted to be fixed to the legs of said bow eyes inside the boat, anchor members on said plates, and the opposite ends of said tension member being connected to said anchor members.

3. A device according to claim 2 in which said anchor members comprise eye-bolts.

4. A device according to claim 2 in which said anchor members comprise eye-bolts and the position of at least one of said eye-bolts being adjustable for drawing said tension member taut when the said device is assembled with a boat hull.

5. A device according to claim 1 in which said tension member is in the form of a chain.

6. A device according to claim 1 in which said first and second means comprise eye bolts having eyes for connection to said tension member and shanks operatively connected to the respective bow eyes, said eyes being disposed in a common plane extending from the juncture of one said eye with the respective shank to the juncture of the other said eye with the respective shank.

7. A device according to claim 1 in which said first and second means comprise eye bolts having shanks operatively connected to said bow eyes, an eye portion fixed to ends of said shanks, and at least one eye portion extending angularly to the respective shank at such an angle that the eye portions and the tension element are disposed in a single plane passing through the junctures of said eye portions with the respective shanks.

8. A device according to claim 1 wherein at least one of said bow eyes is adjustable to draw said tension member taut between said bow eyes.

9. A device for mounting on a boat having a hull, a first member on the outside of said hull forming a loop for engagement by a hook, said member including a part extending through the hull to the inside, means fixedly connecting said member to said hull, a second member on the outside of said hull and also forming a loop for engagement by a hook, said second member also having a part extending through said hull to the inside and means fixedly connecting said second member to the hull, a tension member inside said hull, first means including an anchor element connecting one end of said tension member to said part of said first member, and second means including an anchor element connecting the other end of said tension member to said part of said second member, said tension mem' her being taut between the ends thereof whereby loads imposed on either loop outside the hull of a magnitude sufficient to cause deflection of the hull will be borne, at'least in part, by said tension member.

10. A device for mounting on a boat according to claim 9 wherein said second means is adjustable to draw said tension member taut.

Claims

1. A device for mounting on a boat and providing at least one loop for engagement by a hook, said device comprising: a first bow eye having legs adapted to extend through the deck of the boat, nuts for threading on the legs for connecting the bow eye to the deck, a tension member, first means connecting one end of said tension member to said first bow eye legs inside the hull of the boat, a second bow eye having legs adapted for extending through the boat and further nuts for theading on the legs of said second bow eye to connect the said bow eye to the boat, second means connecting the other end of said tension member to said second bow eye legs inside the hull of the boat whereby a tension load imposed on a bow eye outside the boat will be borne, at least in part, by said tension member.

9. A device for mounting on a boat having a hull, a first member on the outside of said hull forming a loop for engagement by a hook, said member including a part extending through the hull to the inside, means fixedly connecting said member to said hull, a second member on the outside of said hull and also forming a loop for engagement by a hook, said second member also having a part extending through said hull to the inside and means fixedly connecting said second member to the hull, a tension member inside said hull, first means including an anchor element connecting one end of said tension member to said part of said first member, and second means including an anchor element connecting the other end of said tension member to said part of said second member, said tension member being taut between the ends thereof whereby loads imposed on either loop outside the hull of a magnitude sufficient to cause deflection of the hull will be borne, at least in part, by said tension member.