06-21-2010, 05:46 AM
I spent some time on the boat over the last few days doing some changes and getting things ready to relaunch.
One thing I had concerns with was with my turnbuckles loosening while under way and while trailering. To solve that, I've put a nut and lock-washer on one side that I can tighten down. I discovered to my annoyance though that I must have distorted the threads on the aft turnbuckles as niether of them would accept a nut - I managed to strip one in the process. The place where I'd originally bought my turnbuckles no longer carried the same ones so the fore and aft no longer match - but they should work.
The second thing that I did which only took a few minutes once I got to it was to re-hook up my steering. I had re-set the pintle eye-bolts some time ago to reduce the gap between the rudder and stern-post but still had to hook the lines up inside. Previously I had used a turnbuckle here which took up quite a bit of space and also fell apart when needed so I've replaced it with a clever block/cleat combination I found. It should work well and allows for one-handed tightening as necessary.
One thing I had concerns with was with my turnbuckles loosening while under way and while trailering. To solve that, I've put a nut and lock-washer on one side that I can tighten down. I discovered to my annoyance though that I must have distorted the threads on the aft turnbuckles as niether of them would accept a nut - I managed to strip one in the process. The place where I'd originally bought my turnbuckles no longer carried the same ones so the fore and aft no longer match - but they should work.
The second thing that I did which only took a few minutes once I got to it was to re-hook up my steering. I had re-set the pintle eye-bolts some time ago to reduce the gap between the rudder and stern-post but still had to hook the lines up inside. Previously I had used a turnbuckle here which took up quite a bit of space and also fell apart when needed so I've replaced it with a clever block/cleat combination I found. It should work well and allows for one-handed tightening as necessary.