More wee Jobs

New Zealander's have a passion for fishing. If you own a boat you are expected to fish out of it, and we have done so with all our boats for many, many years. So when we first looked for a Loop boat, we figured we would get one with a cockpit - so we could fish off it. As it turned out, and since we were never going to bring our Loop boat back to NZ (yeah, right), we settled on the cockpitless Silverton 453. Now, since the boat has made its way back here, the requirement for fishing has returned once again. While the 453 has no cockpit, it does come with a very large landing board (swim platform) on which you can fish, cook BBQ's, or hold a small square dance, if the fancy takes you. The dinghy stows across the back of it on Weaver davits and that provides for a secure area for outdoor activities as described above -  other than the stays that hold it upright which everyone who comes aboard smacks their heads against at least once!

However when the dinghy is in the water, there is a lot of open space on the landing board and nothing to hang on to when you are getting in and out of it. You also get the uneasy feeling when having a barby on the landing board with the  trusty Weber grill on its trolley, that at any moment the entire kit and caboodle will roll into the tide (not that it ever would - but I actually do tie the trolley to a hand rail, just in case). Another issue was that there were no fishing rod holders anywhere on the boat, and very few places to mount any. I was contemplating these situations the last time we had a barby on board (BOB) and it suddenly struck me that a handrail across the back of the landing board would overcome all of these problems and provide other benefits as well. Accordingly I began investigating having such a fitting made up. As it turned out, a local chap at our marina had a couple of stainless steel rails that he didn't want. They were originally from a supermarket (you know - from the place where the shopping carts are guided in to the store) and when I took one down to the boat, it not only was exactly what I was looking for, it even lined up with some of the existing bolt holes for other devices. Down to the local stainless steel fabricators it went (where it is known as a "staple") and extra rails and the rod holders were added. Over the weekend I took it down to Loopy Kiwi and fitted it, and this is how it turned out

 

So....it provides a nice secure back fence for activities on the landing board as well as somewhere to put the rods when fishing if you need to go elsewhere for a wee while. It doesn't interfere with the raising and lowering of the dinghy, or getting on and off the boat at the dock, and it provides something substantial to grab when climbing in and out of the dinghy at anchor. I hope it will also double as a hand grip for climbing up the swim ladder - if not I can always have a grab handle mounted to the side of it.

 

You may also note in a couple of the pix that the outboard motor is now stowed vertically on a transom mounted bracket. The previous owner had it on a bracket that lay it down on the landing board - which was real dumb because it took up a lot of space, was a trip hazard and was not particularly good for the motor.

Much easier to handle and stow now, and I made the lowest rail on the staple high enough for the outboard to slide underneath for fitting to the dinghy.

 

In the last posting I didn't put any pix up of the raw water alarm I had just fitted (because I didn't have any at the time). Well now I have so here they are

 

 That's all for now - till next time.