Pintle Mount Shock

I have been a bit time poor for the past few weeks - that should change near Christmas, but I managed to get my phone (camera) into the buoyancy chambers that have the top pintle mount backing plates in them.
Oh dear...

The port side

The starboard side

Pine!!! He almost missed the backing plate too...

I removed the bolts (and pintle) from the starboard side (I can't do the port without someone to hold the spanner) and tried to move the pine but it is solidly glued (epoxied) on. I haven't tried REALLY hard to move it yet - I'm trying to get advise on this. At this point I think the path of least damage is to retain the pine. This area is well above the waterline with the floor that you can see on the same level as the cockpit floor - probably 600mm above the water. The hull-beds are below this chamber so it should never see water - pine should be OK - yes?

Keep in mind that I can't see what I'm doing  - the pictures make it look simple to get access but that is via a 6" round access hatch (port side shown below). It'll be "feel your way".

My plan for the starboard side is to place another piece of 50mm x 19mm pine with and 'L' shape cut out of it around the corner near the bolts and (Bote-cote with thickener) glue it to the existing pine and the transom. The reason I'll use more pine is to keep the "squashability" the same.
Then I'll coat the whole lot on port and starboard with thinned epoxy (I'll pre-coat my new piece too).

I will fill and seal the inner two bolt holes then, when I refit the pintles, I will only use the two outside bolts with oversize washers that will span the existing and new parts of the backing plate. I'm reasoning here that two 1/4" Stainless Steel bolts are strong enough for one 8mm pintle mount.

Rudder Changes

Here is a look at the rudder arrangement on our Jarcat. This picture is from the sellers advertisement.

It's not obvious from the picture, but the port (left) rudder is 25mm away from the bottom of the hull when the rudder is fully down. The starboard (right) rudder clears by a massive 50mm. The advise is that this should be about 2mm. As it is now, the rudder boxes will drag in the water and the rudders will collect seaweed and garbage.

The rudder pintles (the pivot pins) are mounted on the transom (the back vertical bit of the boat). The gudgeons - the bits with the hole that drops over the pintle, are mounted on the rudders - more correctly the rudder boxes  (these are the things that the kick-up rudders fold into and are pivoted from).

My plan is to move the gudgeons down on the rudder boxes. The cross-arm connecting the port and starboard rudder boxes and the tiller arrangement will then have to be re-worked. The tiller will end up below the cross-arm - in the picture it's above the cross-arm.

This picture show why the tiller is a "chuck away". It hits you in the kneecap and in no way clears the outboard motor.

Here are the rudder boxes removed from the boat, the gudgeons removed, and the gudgeon mounting holes filled.

To fill the holes, I used 1/4" hardwood dowel cut about 10-12mm shorter than the length of the hole. I squashed one end so it would stay put in the hole equidistantly from each end then I blocked the lower end of the hole with masking tape and filled the hole with slightly thickened epoxy - it took a while for it to dribble down.

In the same picture (click on the picture for a better look) you can see the rudder gudgeons. Another small surprise - two different brands - Ronstan and Riley. The Ronstan (the ones with the flange filled in) were on the starboard rudder box and the Riley on the port. Ronstan (RF905 - no longer available nor is the RF2505) have a 52mm gap (the rudder boxes are 52-53mm) and Riley (RM591) have a 51mm gap (they measure 50mm). There will have to be some sanding and repainting to fit them. I will also place Ronstan on the top and Riley on the bottom - just for symmetry. At least something will be symmetrical- more on that later...

VicRoads today

I was at VicRoads today getting the trailer and boat registered. The left indicator didn't work - can you believe it? A quick trip to a service station and back for a BA15S globe. VicRoads staff (Sara) was very accommodating. Astonishing that when I made the phone booking for inspecting the trailer and registering the boat, the person on the phone made the boat appointment immediately after the trailer appointment. Turns out that the boat appointment was YESTERDAY. Sara just fitted me in around other appointments.

Trailer passed and our Jarcat is now registered.
A strange coincidence was that I pulled up next to another Outlander PHEV in the inspection bay. That's our tow car and they are not common. I have a small blog on the PHEV.

William commented that I still call the boat either "the boat" or "the Jarcat", not Kismet (he noticed when I called it Kismet in a Whatsapp (text) message). That's because we haven't REALLY decided on the name so I don't want to have to go back and edit posts to change the name if it changes. I like Kismet - more than likely that will be it.

I put the boat back on the front lawn in a slightly different position so as to minimise damage to our lawn. Since I didn't have William's help (he's in Tanzania with Projects abroad), I came up with a less strenuous way of parking the boat and getting the car out from in front of it. It will also make it easier to turn the trailer to point out the driveway when we are taking it out again.
(I drive the trailer in forwards for increased security.)

I spent a couple of hours tonight removing duct tape from the mast where it was holding rigging in place and replacing it with either camstraps or rope. In one place the duct tape had been there so long it tore some paint of the mast. I also re-positioned the mast so we could test fit the outboard on the boat.