Oxnard - Day 24

While other get ready for the mass (if you get ready for the mass at 7AM), I jump into my engine room and decided to prepare everything for those worker of the yard, if they decide - finally- to start to work on my shaft. ( hopefully, next week).

I decided to cut a bit of the wood to get better access to the backing plate of the shaft strut. It will be easier to install, to check later on and to clean now.

You cannot say, but it is clean.
You should have seen before.

I took a note to redo this full arrangement later on. I might try to replace this big wood plank that is getting rotten a bit. Actually, I had some epoxy left from my stern cleat job, I did a pass of coating it. Cannot be bad.

With the Through-hull job in stand-by of the divine judgment, I decided to hold-off on plumbing for now, I did already enough damage so far. I started one or my 2 biggest projects remaining. Putting back the stern cleats, but with a backing plate, to sustain higher loads. ( more on this later). 

Another epoxy job

Looking at my cleats, I realized they were hollow.
I decided to fill them with Epoxy. It should be stronger, right ? In any case, Cannot be worst.
(After the case, I thought it might actually cause issue of corrosion through the lack of oxygenation of the metal, like coated life-line. Anyway, I am not sure, then I will assume it will not be the case).

Another messy job for sir 5200.

The hard part over (It was actually aligning the holes of 3 layers of metal (the cleat, the support and the backing plate), drilling through half inch of stainless steel is always very fun. (This time I brought from Hawaii my real drill, not the funny "screwdriver" as the worker on the yard called it, on batteries, which helps).

I realized that having the proper tools makes all the difference. I don't have the tool : I screw up. I do have the tool. It is a breeze.

Don't you think it looks like a birthday cake ?

Top side.

Except the impossible position to screw this thing in (you have to go Inside the transom, laying on top of the rudder - I always find it is a miracle I can fit in there, and even more amazing , I can get out of there eventually), everything went way better than expected.

Stainless steel backing plate.

All this for this little plate (half inch stainless steel on 4"x5"). Now I can trust the stern of the boat to be able to withstand an hurricane. (More on this later).

Overall, a good day, even I was stressed all day at the idea of redoing all through-hulls.
Crossing fingers.