Grind thru the gelcoat, down to fiberglass to ensure good adhesion of new material to the boat. Then build up a level/flat pad for mounting the new cleat.

See Cleat pad finish

After the strong base pad is made, sand and shape the raw pad to get it ready for gelcoat. This is my pad with gelcoat and polished out. It is ready to drill holes to mount the cleat.

See Finished cleat

Holes drilled, cleat bedded. I made a SS backing plate that fit the underside of the toe rail. The cleats came from Hunter and match the others on the boat. Everyone who sees it thinks it came from the factory this way. It should have.

See Cleats in use

You can see the springline running foreward from the starboard midship cleat. Another big bonus is that I now have a place to rig a preventer.