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@karena, welcome, and say HI to Arlyn, Glen and Nancy, and all the other Vic18 owners on Harriet, there is more of those boats there then anywhere else on earth!
BEST POST OF THE DAY!
Oh, it's sure not hurting a thing! I... I... Naw, I can't go there...The hat really sets the tone for that pic....
) , but believe me, the Vic gets _very_ solid in a blow, and once you convey that message, your passengers will settle down quickly. a 1200b boat with 550b of lead in it's butt will want to stay on it's feet like the old rock-em-sock-em you had as a kid . I do find the inclinometer very useful however, when a passenger is claiming "we were almost on our side" I tell them to keep and eye on it for me. they soon realize that what they might perceive as 45* is often actually only 10*, which reassures them better than anything you could say.
Even if you used a hack to saw the old bolt off, you would still need to get to the back to hold the new nut. I'm guessing if you squeezed down the lazarette berth, you would see the backing plate and nut for your jib cleat. Borrow someones 9-year old kid and offer $5 to slide on down there with a vice-grip and hold the nut for you while you back out the bolts.
We'll here's mud in _my_ eye . what I _meant_ to say was..... oh never mind,... you get it to access the nut you'll have to shinny up into the torpedo tube (aka berth), from the cabin, to reach the nuts. having someone up top with a phillips screwdriver will of course be required also. What line size jib sheets do you have on the boat now? should be 3/8, as smaller may not "jam" as well. hopefully you're replacing with another self jamming horn cleat? I love those things on mine. so much so that I replaced the non jamming ones on my Mac with them also. If worse comes to worse, and you just have to sail before replacement is possible, you can always run the sheet across the cockpit to the opposite side cleat for a day .