Updates

2020 April 23, page added.

Except for the mahogany grab rail above the bridge forward door, the rails and stanchions on the early boats, PT's 103-138, were constructed of brass. Grab rails on Elco boats after these changed to wood, oak rails and teak stanchions. There was one exception, the port rail on the chart house roof with its special stanchion forward that allowed the attachment of a life line.

Most of the rails remained in the same positions with a few exceptions. Starting with PT 372, the forward turret was moved aft so the rail that had previously been aft of it was moved to forward of the turret. It was also longer. PT's 565-624 eliminated this rail along with the chart house port rail. The short starboard forward rail was moved to port. PT's 565-624 also had a rubber boat storage locker mounted forward of the bridge port wing so the bridge port rail forward of it was shortened. It was also straight and parallel to the deck, earlier rails were gently curved. One other change were the turret rails, they were parallel to the turret tops on PT's 103-196 and 314-367. Elco PT's 372 and on were mounted parallel to the deck.

The following images show dimensions, details, and locations for the Elco 80' PT boat grab rails. These dimensional images represent a best effort on my part using detailed Elco drawings, please confirm dimensions given here for yourself if errors cannot be tolerated. Images are for non-commercial personal use only, please obtain permission for any other use.