Swan floorboard ring pull
Does anyone know where I can obtail the ring pulls used to lift floorboards?  The original units are 2 1/8 inch on each side and I would like to stay with the original dimensions so I don't have to perform major surgery on my teak and holly sole.  Either original equipment or a third party replacement would be fine; stainless steel is preferred.  I've atached a picture of one of the original equipment units.  Thanks. 

I can not locate these floorboard ring pulls anywhere so I am looking into having some made.  The replacements would be identical to the original in size, shape, functionality, etc. and of course would be of stainless steel.

Please let me know if anyone else would like a couple made for their boat.  My personal email address is phil.groben@att.net.  Thanks.

I realize it's been awhile since this thread started. 

Has anyone been able to find a replacement for this type of ring pull?

Hi Kevin,

I tried to source the original ring pulls (or at least something with identical dimensions) a couple of years ago and spent quite some time searching the net - unfortunately to no avail. 

Must say I have given up now but if you can find any let us know - thank you!

We are having Kairo's floor boards refurbished later this year and the yard will replace a couple of broken pull rings with a version that's as close to the original dimensions as possible.

On a different but related note, while we'd like to have all pull rings in working order, we try not to use them to lift the floor boards, at least not the larger and/or jammed ones. Our experience is that the rings tend to fail quite easily or detach from the floor board plus hurt your hand if the board does not come up easily.

Instead we use a double suction glas lifter like the one in the picture below to lift our floor boards.

Works a treat for us even for the largest boards and makes handling them much easier as you can attach the lifter where you want on the board. E.g. in the centre of gravity or close to one side/edge to free a jammed board. The vacuum does not last forever but certainly long enough to get the board up and out of the way safely.

Cheers and fair winds,

Stefan

Kairos - 57/043

Example of double suction glass lifter

Hi Phil, have a look at: https://www.toplicht.de/de/kajuete-komfort/bodenheber?p=1

We changed our floorboard pulls 10 years ago and we are reallly happy with them. 

Kind regards, Klaus, S-38, CARISSIMA

Stefan, While the suction cup seems like a good idea, it's not necessary in my 411 because the pieces of my cabin sole come up easily with just the right amount of pull.  I think the reason for my good luck is because the bilges are kept dry and I run a dehumidifier most of the time to keep all the varnished wood from swelling.  Or maybe I'm just lucky!  Either way, the boards are not extremely tight.  However, they might have once ago been tighter because there are a couple broken ring pulls.  Gosh, it would be nice to replace only a few of them and also not to have to re-mill the floorboards to fit a different size hardware.  

Klaus,  the hardware referenced here is 54mm square.  I'm looking for an off the shelf exact replacement, but I didn't see one on that website.  Did you find an exact fit for yours?  

Thanks for sharing.

Kevin

Hi Kevin,

I had one with a missing ring when I bought boat. I found an inox ring of almost the same dimensions on the Internet, drilled holes into the place where the ring was attached, through the floorboard, and used a plastic cable binder to fix the ring. Works fine and nearly looks original. There are also stainless steel cable binders of small width, should a ring break loose again I will try one of those.

I would not be astonished if they have been custom-made by Nautor at the time. 

I am putting a thin layer of marine grease at the edges of the floorboards once a year, to prevent squeaking. The side effect is that they can be lifted easily with the ring.

Christian 411/028 IF