Creative problem solving...

[FourPoints]

So I'm getting ready to head up to the defender sale tomorrow (taking the day off!), and I just remembered I need to get new beckson portlight screens as mine are falling apart, but I couldn't remember exactly what size my portlights are... My boat is at it's winter home, 40 minutes away, and not in the direction of the defender sale tomorrow.

After a bunch of googleing and no luck, I came across something on the beckson website that gave a measurement of part of the hinge. I have a picture of them that I took a while back...

I opened the picture on the computer with an image editing program (any will work) and used the select tool to grab a section of the image that I knew from my research to equal exactly 0.25", I was able to do a quick calculation that X number of pixels on this image equaled 1/4" (in this case 50). I then used the select tool to select the entire width of the window and got the pixel count, divided that by 50, and times .25, and I got 12.43"

It just happens that one of the portlight sizes measures 12.5" OD on the window. I redid my calculation to confirm the height, again I came out to within 1/8" of the 5" measurement that matches the 12" portlights

Thought I'd share this little tidbit in case anyone else finds themselves in need of a measurement when away from the boat, but in possession of a picture.

...And I wanted to pat myself on the back for a creative solution to my problem

 

[Joe]

Good solution.... Also, you could insert the picture into a blank word document and measure against the margin ruler.

 

[Bad Obsession]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWkjPrrBimA

Just thought that I would share! LOL

 

[PaulK]

Or you could call Beckson, in Bridgeport, and find out what size they sold Hunter for your boat. Maybe even stop by there on your way to Defender.

 

[LuzSD]

I for one am very impressed......very ingenious......... thanks for patting yourself publicly, it was fun!

 

[FourPoints]

Or you could call Beckson, in Bridgeport, and find out what size they sold Hunter for your boat. Maybe even stop by there on your way to Defender.

I didn't know they were local, I'll keep that in mind in the future, Thanks!

As for asking them what was installed on my boat, I doubt they would know offhand (or at all) which size portlight was installed on my boat 21 years ago, even if they had been open to call and ask...

 

[FourPoints]

Good solution.... Also, you could insert the picture into a blank word document and measure against the margin ruler.

In some cases that could work, it depends on the size of the known measurement in the picture. In this case, I actually tried using the rulers (in the image program, not word, but same idea) and found it was too hard to get an accurate measurement because the dimension of the hinge I was measuring was so small. The part was 1/4", and the picture showed roughly 18" of space, so I was trying to measure something roughly 1/72 of the image.

If the hinge I was measuring was 1 inch across, then I probably would have been able to effectively use the ruler.