Rigging faux-pas
- Thread starter Jackdaw
- Start date
It was difficult to watch as this boat owner repaired the rotted out balsa cored transom of his boat after he almost lost his outboard motor when the motor mount pull off the transom. First he cut away only part of the water logged section and left a lot of the rotted balsa in the rest of the transom. He replaced the balsa core with accoustical ceiling tiles and then epoxyed the original thin fiberglass exterior skin over the ceiling tiles. I tried giving him some advice before he started the project but it fell upon deaf ears. It was his idea not mine to use ceiling tiles.
My bet is, the screw driver was rusty before insertion. So, either he left it long enough to rust or he chose to introduce a rusting metal to his critical hardware.
It can be hard sometimes. When I launched and sailed the Windmill, I couldn't find one of two drain plugs. I snapped off a twig of about the right diameter and screwed it into the hole. It worked. Of course, I wasn't worried about my rig falling down or introducing rot into the adjacent parts.
-Will (Dragonfly)
When it is more important to spend the day sailing than in the workshop trying to fabricate the item the marine store is out of you do what you got to do. BTW good practice in event of problem on the water for adapting and adjusting, or like a I say Semper Gumbi!
When a broken clevis pin allowed the gooseneck pin to start to drop out I jammed a screwdriver in and seized it with paracord. Told the wife we should drop the main before the screwdriver broke, she said "Is it a Craftsman ? They're guaranteed" I said "No it's a rusted out POS from Harbor freight".
I'm sure that I'll get flamed for this, but...
When I rig the roller furler on my 170 day sailor, it's pretty hard to get that little pin in there. I'll bet that a nice pointy Philips head screwdriver, with a nice big handle, would be a lot easier to insert. I may need to give that idea some consideration.
After I took possession of my Mark 25 I found the backing for one of the outboard bracket bolts was a vice grip.
jssailem
SBO Weather and Forecasting Forum Jim & John
- Oct 22, 2014
- 23,505
