...with a broken paddle.
We were rowing back from shore the other afternoon, having returned the Terminator to John on Trick as they were headed back to Puerto Escondido. I'm merrily rowing along when *SNAP* the port oar just broke in two, Right at the oarlock where, of course, the greatest stress is. Lulu took the broken piece and used it as a paddle. I would row with one oar and then Lulu would correct our course with the paddle. Slow, but we got there. About a week ago, Mick from s/v Kashmir lost an oar sometime during the night. Now he had just one oar which wasn't doing him much good. We borrowed his remaining oar but the mismatch made rowing pretty difficult.
Nothing left to do but repair our own oars.
The repair was nothing Earth-shattering but it worked out well. We happened to have a couple of pieces of closet rod stock on the boat. It was bigger around than the interior diameter of the broken oar shaft so I had to plane it down to size.
Once it was small enough to just slip into the shaft, I put one end in and pinned it in place with some screws.
Then I slipped the other end over the protruding plug and screwed in in place.
And voila! we once again had a matched set.
The repair went so well that today, I cut the other oar apart at the stress point and inserted a wooden plug in it, too. Figured I'd head trouble off at the pass for once.
2 comments:
Nice repair. I doubt I would have thought of it. My mind doesn't do well when it comes to carpentry.
A chip off the old block. We always refer to Dad as McGiver. Give him some grey tape, clothes pins etc and he will have a solution. Love, Mom
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