Re: tail light and leaks

Mac Davis (cgula@innet.com)
Wed, 28 Oct 1998 15:25:17 -0500


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West Wight Potter Website at URL
http://www.lesbois.com/wwpotter/
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Hi Eric:
Here's how I rigged Kelpie's sternlight. I had a piece of stainless tubing
lying around that had been fabricated as a binnacle guard for a wheel
steered large boat. It was ¾ inch tubing, bent into a U. I cut it off so
that each leg of the U was about 18", and used 2 lifeline fittings to angle
it back about 30º from the vertical. I mounted the sternlight to the middle
of the now inverted U, running the wire down through the tubing. With the
raked aft mount, water drips straight down and doesn't run down the tube.
The light is about 12" above the rudder, which improves the visibility
considerably, and the angle back keeps it out of the way of the backstay.
Sort of a very small pushpit. Works for me. Others have probably worked
out different approaches.

BTW: my big leak was the keel-lift winch mounting bolts. Some <dirty word>
engineer drilled oversized holes to east a line-up problem during
installation, with the result that in even a little rain the storage locker
in the transom would fill up.

Hope this helps,
Mac Davis, Kelpie, WWP19#804, Aripeka, Fl

>The worst leak by far was the sternlight. Water was literally pouring in.
>I've got a couple ideas on how to seal it up, but it has always annoyed me,
>because it sticks up in an otherwise smooth part of the decking above the
>transom, and its metal housing gets very hot when in use, and people tend
to
>burn themselves when coming up the boarding ladder after a late night swim.
>
>I'm trying to think of a good place to relocate it. The sternlights that
>mount flush against the transom seem like a decent way to go, because it
>will be far less susceptible to leaks (the transom stays relatively dry
when
>it rains), and less likely for someone to grab at it and get burnt. But I'm
>afraid that with the boarding ladder, rudder, and motor there, it will be
>shaded even worse than it is now.
>
>Any thoughts?