My tip for placement would be a couple of inches wide of the centre-line, as I have got it :) and also an inch aft of the traveller, as I have not got it :(
Discovered this after pulling the traveller tight and realising the traveller block is maybe going to catch on the port edge in light...
The reason the deck was warped was due to separation of laminate from foam core. Bolting the port down tight flattens it again.
Fitting the port is pretty easy. Lots of silicone to seal it.
Filled the holes with silicone from the outside until it dripped through and covered the bolts in silicone before putting them through.
These are the washer stacks and nuts in place on the inside. Resmothered in more silicone
Had to stack the washers to get a big enough area to share the load. The nuts and bolts are stainless but the washers were only available in galvanised so I smeared silicone all over them. Makes them much easier to work with inside the boat too since they stick together.
This is the inside of the transom where the screws had stripped and come loose (holes on the right). You can see the screws on the left still holding that side of the gudgeon. The material being used for giving purchase to the screw thread is glassed in. Some kind of block of wood I guess. Could...
When you use the port as a template to draw a circle to cut the hole take note of any stepped expansion in gauge or else you will need to gingerly expand the hole slightly with the jig-saw
After all that I found another block the same size!
My hands were bleeding so I just left that one in.
The blocks were damp on the surface underneath the plastic cover even though the boat has been airing with ports open for 4 months.
But the foam was not saturated at all and was bone dry...
Decided to cut the old foam out and replace with plastic bottles or something.
Takes a while one piece at a time. Serated edge bread knife works best. Wear gloves cause the straggly fibre glass round the hole cuts your knuckles.
Thanks for the suggestions of just re-drilling the screw-hole. I would quite like to put a port in anyway for maintenance going forwards as she is very old.
The way the old wooden tiller sits on this setup means I can put the port on the centreline and it won't interfere with the tiller as...
Well 4 and half months later and i have managed to find an excuse to avoid this job every weekend and now I missed a good weekends sailing last week.
I need to put the inspection port on the rear deck. The centre-line is the only really nice flat part of the rear deck. The rest is a bit warped...
Might need more practice at capsize recovery before taking somebody else out. When I was a kid I used to sit in front of the mast on my dad's laser, (out of the way of the boom!). a small adult passenger could maybe also do this. If it is moderately windy and you want to 100% avoid a capsize...
My 1976 vintage wooden tiller is a bit shoogly at the best of times but yesterday I thought it was even worse than usual. I returned to shore to discover that the lower rudder mount had worked its way free on one side with the 2 screws on that side both coming loose. The thread in the 2 holes in...
I've wrapped the sail round the mast, as described above, when it was so cold that I definitely didn't want to end up in the water but still wanted to go for a sail, and so windy that going for a swim would have been a certainty with a full rig.
Works quite well I found.
There was thread ages ago about 'have you tried any unusual sailing postions' a while back but I can't find it.
Anyway have you ever tried to do it standing up?
It is quite good fun if it's not too windy. I just thought of it today bored in light air and tried it. A bit like a big surf...
It is summer in Australia which means it is nice and warm.
I had my second warm evening sail. It is so warm you have to wear nothing under your life jacket (oh the secret thrill of nobody knowing that you have nothing on under your life jacket), anyway, I developed an unusual condidtion on the...
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