Oh, dear. I managed to crash my boat.
Still, having built (still building) it, I can fix it - n-o-o-o problem!
More in a moment. I know I have two threads running about Three Summers in this section, so I'm going to keep them separate - this thread about using/maintaining/fine tuning and/or fixing any
collision damage, while the
other thread (link to latest post) will still be updated with continuing building notes...
Last time I used the boat I noticed it was harder to turn left than right (in retrospect, I think I was aware of it all the time, but hadn't woken up to it, if that makes any sense?). The pic below shows the fin on the motor at it's setting as supplied, near mark #2, which I moved to #4.
I went out with a friend on Sunday, mainly to test the depth sounder and steering, which is now
almost spot on, but I'll move it to #5 before I go out again just to see. I've seen reports here about boats pulling left or right, but my no-feed-back system works quite well, and the pull was limited to a difference of effort (not much, btw) required to turn each direction.
Depth sounder is perfect too. I never realised that the river was so deep - over six metres in some places, but on average around three to four metres. Oh, and I never even realised that the sounder gave water temperature and battery voltage reading when I bought it.
Anyway, to the collision (two boats involved) - you can see the damage on the rubrail clearly, and then also a small mark on the hull between the spray rail and the blue part of the hull.
The hull is just a scratch really, with some paint chipped off down to the fairing. I can't see any cracks in the fairing or glass under it, but I'm going to put some epoxy over the chip just to be safe. Repainting can wait until I replace the keel.
The rubrail on the other hand took most of the impact, as you can see. I guess it did its job
And this is the damage to the other boat - you can see that the rubrail caught the hook, and has actually bent it over a bit, pulling the right-hand screw out of the gunwale. Crunch. That's wood from Three Summers still lying there.
Now the embarrassing part - they're both my boats! It happened while towing Three Summers into the boatyard, a.k.a. my back garden, and I was looking where I was driving, not where the boat was going. The other boat is Platanna (local name for African Clawed Frog), my newly acquired business in the tourism industry, doing river cruises. She's out the water at the moment 'cos the steering mechanism was totally jammed up and had actually stripped the gears in the helm. That problem is now sorted out, and I just need to put all the bits back together again - then we're in business.
There are worse jobs, you know...
Have fun.
Tim.