August 25, 26, 2007

In the Basement, Coulter St.

Remounting the Foot Pegs

(shot with Sony DSC-S85)
(view other photo essays)


While I have been out in the new Tsunami 120 several times, some
observant readers have noticed an absence of endorsement;
or any kind of opinion. Well.

There's a problem. The foot pegs are mounted too short for my legs.
Even though they are adjustable and ride on rails, the whole assembly
is mounted too far aft. So even in their fartherst forward position,
I still can't reach them. I made do in my two initial outings by
rigging a web strap between the foot pegs. I was less than thrilled.


This picture shows a typical catalog shot of the Tsunami 120.
Note the locations of the screw heads, representing the mounting
location of the SlideLock mechanism.


So it's clear what I'm talking about, here's another catalog shot,
The footbrace is an essential part of controlling your boat.
It gives you a solid anchor to pull against.



Here's a photo of my boat.
(Sorry, it's flipped with regard to the reference picture.)



OK, here I flipped the reference picture. Compare.



I discovered while lighting the inside of the boat to
work there, that it produced a kind of x-ray of the
footbrace system when viewed from the outside. Cool.



Here, the screws and footbrace are removed from the starboard
side of the boat.


There's actually a dimple molded into the hull,
in the same position on both sides. It indicates where the
foot braces should be mounted.

There's a short, unhappy story about my call to Wilderness Systems
customer support. I explained my problem and the lady told me to
take my boat in to the dealer to see if they could adjust it.
I explained that it was an Internet purchase and that I was sure
I could remount the foot braces myself. But it would mean drilling
holes in my new boat and I wasn't happy about the fact that I needed to.
And what was I supposed to use to plug the old holes?

The customer service woman suggested I fill the old holes with silicone
caulk. The kind you can get at Lowes or Home Depot. I insisted that I
didn't want to just stick gobs of liquid plastic into the hull of my boat,
I wanted matching screw heads. I wanted it to at least look like
it was properly built.

The lady was less than sympathetic, and suggested that screws would leak.
I suggested that I could seal them with silicone caulk; but it seemed only
fair to me to send out some matching screws and cap nuts to hold them.

Suffice to say, I'm still waiting for the screws.

In the meantime, I happened to have a set of matching screws on hand.
(I know. But it's the principle involved...) I had a set of four
identical screws left over from when I purchased a set of slidelocks to
outfit both forward positions of the Pamlico. That's another story, so I'll
just leave it all right there and continue with the repair story.



The mounting holes in the slide-lock rail are 14.5" apart. I started
by drilling directly into the dimple, then measured 14.5" forward
and drilled again.



To my shock and horror, the first foot brace didn't line up!
I anchored the rear position through the new screw hole and
Surprise! The forward hole was 1/8" off!

Geometry (Thank you, Mrs. Peischel), explains the problem.



I had made my measurement with a flexible aluminum ruler that
conformed to the shape of the hull. What I measured was 14.5"
of circumference across the curved surface.

The foot brace is rigid and mounts as a chord across the arc.
(I knew this and was counting on it to keep the screw and nut
I planned to use to plug the old mounting hole from interfering
with the brace in its new position.)

Fortunately, off by 1/8" wasn't too catastrophic. The screw heads
are big and would hide at least 1/8" of error. I just wanted to be
sure to use extra silicone caulk to seal this hole.

Having learned a valuable lesson on the starboard side of the hull,
I used a different measuring technique on the port. This time, I
used the actual footbrace as a guide and made my drilling mark
directly through the brace's mounting hole.



Here, with the benefit of interior lighting, you can see the
remounted footbrace system in its new location. Also indicated
are the dummy screw heads used to plug the existing mounting holes.

Now, surely, next time out in my new Tsunami 120 would be the long
awaited charm! And Labor Day weekend was just 6 days away!

Go to Labor Day report.

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