Finished replacing a new skeg today

[brambor]

I finished replacing a skeg on a Valley boat today. It was a fun ordeal but I do have a question about the final screw on the skeg that holds the skeg wire. Because the screw is angled towards the boat and there is about 3 inches of free room to maneuver it makes it very difficult to use a screwdriver. I ended up using a flat blunt area of a knife to finish the job but next time I will remember to screw beforehand all the way to the threshhold before I install the skeg for the final 20 turns into the wire.

This spring I kinked the cable on my Nordkapp. After I took it to someone who can repair it, I managed to lose the skeg on the way to the repair shop. In addition the nut in the pull knob was totally rusted and could not be removed.

So I took the boat back home and ordered the whole skeg with the wire and the knob. It took forever to get it but when it arrived on Friday I got right to work to do the replacement.

For starters, cutting the plastic knob to remove it was an ordeal as in the middle of the knob is a fairly resilient steel nut which makes the cutting difficult. The plastic keeps melting when you cut it with a power tool and using hand cutter ... I did not have a mini cutter handy to operate in such close quarters. The fact that we are dealing with a fiberglass and tight spaces kept the job interesting.

The wire did go in smoothly but the final affixation of the knob nut to the wire took some jiggling around. I finally had to remove the metal rod and count the number of turns it takes to get to the wire. Then reattach the metal rod and count the turns until I knew whether I was hitting the metal rod or whether I was able to continue turning until the wire was secured.

The cutting of the skeg wire was hard with the 3 wire cutting tools in my basement. The tools managed the wire to untangle. I ended up using a power cutter which cut the cable clean. I did not want to risk cutting the cable short and messing up the whole project so it took 3 cuts to get the right depth.

But now it's all good and done. Yay!