Seat Repair

A few months ago, I had to take the Gemini SP out of circulation because the backband broke.

More precisely, the part of the seat pan that one of the bolts attached to had sheared clean out. I mentioned this in my post about the Rendezvous event, but for various reasons I didn't finish the repair until January.

First I emailed Valley, and they suggested replacement. Honestly, I was angling for some sort of free or warranty repair, but that's not how the kayak world works. In any case, they're in the UK and I'm in the US, so I was directed to the nearest Valley dealer, Kayak Centre of Rhode Island. Matt Bosgraaf set me straight, and even sent along a pair of bolts later on, that I'd forgotten I'd need.

Some people have been unclear about what I mean about the "seat pan". There are several ways to mount a seat in a boat; the true enthusiasts will situate some carved foam, but I wasn't ready to do that. Basically it's a butt-shaped bucket.

Here's the replacement, upside down and backwards.

The Replacement.

I noticed some spider cracks on the right. Asking around on a sea kayaking forum, comments were generally split between "that's just a byproduct of the manufacturing process, don't worry" to "no that's terrible, send it back." I wrote Valley again with a picture, and they said, in effect, the former. By this point I hadn't paddled the Gemini for a couple of months, so I decided to install the seat.

Area of Concern.

Doing so would require some non-trivial effort. First I had to remove the old seat.

Look! A ball in my cockpit.

I started by removing the hip pads. These are held on with small straps, so that was easy. This is from the broken side, and you can see a hint of zip-tie poking out - but we'll get more into that later.

Hip Pad.

Next I had to remove the four screws that hold the seat in. Imagine the seat is a U, and it's an undersink mount, the top ends attached to the underside of the deck. Two small plats underneath act as sort of lateral washers.

I was nervous about doing this over floorboards with gaps over the open river, but also, it was cold, and I was determined. So, I was careful, cupping my hand under each thing that might drop.

One side detached.

The opposite side, still attached.

I did most of this with a cheap household repair kit. I need to get a better one - the bits don't stay in the driver! I tried using my Gerber but it wasn't comfortable, nor ratcheting.

Cheap ratcheting screwdriver.

Here, on the "good" or unbroken side, you can see how the backband normally attaches. Basically, a bolt with a washer goes through the strap and holds it fast to the sides of the seat pan.

This is what it is supposed to look like.

The backband also attaches to the middle of the seat pan, almost straight down range from the business end of your bum. This proved to be one of the more challenging things to remove, because an inch of foam is on the opposite side, and I couldn't do anything more than rotate the bolt until I removed the foam

Backband above, seat pad below.

The backband also secures via bungie through a small hole in the back of the coaming. It's held fast with a knot tied through a thing. I don't know what this thing is called.

Support for the backband.

With the backband no longer attached to the boat, I was able to slide the seat out. It took some doing - sliding it forward to a slightly wider part of the boat, then rotating. It weren't hard, but it weren't easy neither.

The seat pan removed.

Now that the old seat pan was fully removed, I could see the damage in full light. The round hole is supposed to be there. The square hole above it is not. From what I can tell, the entire square, approximately 1" by 1", popped at once, and shortly after, the fracture between that and the circle formed.

You can make out the black zip ties that I had used to keep the backband in place at the time, but these were only temporary. I found that they not only wore out quickly, but put more strain on what was left of the seat pan, since they didn't have a washer and bolt to distribute the load more evenly. Basically, the edge they looped around would saw away, and the zipties could put the load on the narrow edge they looped around. It was a mutually destructive relationship.

This is not what it is supposed to look like.

Last step: taking the bandband off the old seat.

With the seat removed, I could finally flip it over to get at that pesky bold holding the backband in. To do that, I had to remove this foam padding from the bottom.

This block of foam is all that's between the seat and the keel.

Not so hard once you can get to it!

This little nut attaches the backband to the lower part of the seat.

Now, "getting to it" meant I had access. I still had to use a small vice grip to hold the nut in place while I removed the bolt. At the time, it didn't occur to me that I'd have to take the foam off.

Foam bent back to access the nut.

At last, side by side comparison of the old and the new seat pans. Looks like a match!

Old and new. Maybe I should lease?

One minor thing I had to do: there are two small loops of rope tied on at the front; these made for good handles when I had to tug the old pan free. To transfer them, I undid a knot on each, and slid them through.

I noticed an intriguing aspect that I think made these much easier to re-tire the knots: beveled ends.

I appreciate engineering details.

Knowing that I'd have to have access to that nut again, I poked and widened a hole in the underseat's foam block before gluing it back on.

For a hole in the seat-bucket, Eliza.

All of the above is as far as I got on the first day. It was a cold day in December, and I needed to let the glue dry between the foam and the seat, before I could install the seat.

Between my work schedule, weather, and social obligations, it was a full two weeks before I went back to actually install the new seat.

When I went back, I pulled the boat out to the deck in the club's garden, so I wouldn't be over water, and laid out the bits I needed to re-install.

Backband bolts in the Sephora case, side mounts below.

I like to organize my materials before I start. Off-camera, my boxes of tools on a ledge.

It looks more refined without the fittings for a human.

One concern is, I'm still using the old backband, which means I've got the strap that chafed against the zipties for a couple of days. I ended up folding some gorilla tape over the end, before re-attaching to the seat pan.

Hmmmmm........

Now, unfortunately, low temperatures seem to have put my phone into a coma, so I don't have more pictures. However, installing the new seat was fairly straightforward, mostly a reverse of the removal. I do have a one more tip to share, though.

Lining up and bolting the side mounts was really tricky. About three photos up, you see a pair of metal plates with bolts through them; those bolts go down just to the side of the coaming, holding the seat's sides against the interior of the deck. Those plates help distribute the load.

The hard part is holding those plates up while also holding a nut in place while driving the bolt in from above. It's a tough angle, and I couldn't reach my arm in - just my fingers through the circular hole in the side. This is all out of sight, because of the seat pan.

Eventually, I devised a method of using a piece of tape folded back on itself to stick the plate onto two of my fingers while the other two held the bolt just long enough for the bolt to get some bite.


I'm happy to say that the replacement seems to have gone well. I've had that boat in the pool a couple of times since, and also on a 7nm journey in the lower harbor of NYC to check out some seals. Time will tell, but I think this is one repair I can check off as well done.

Pace 18 Rudder Repair

A few months ago I bought a used Tiderace Pace 18, model year 2012. It's a brilliant boat - though long, it edges well, and I hardly ever need the rudder, but it's been nice to have when I do need it.

Unfortunately, while the boat and mechanicals are in overall great shape, after a couple months of use, I found myself unable to retract the rudder from the cockpit. This had been working just fine, and is normally done by pulling on a rope with a toggle on it.

A jam cleat holds the rope in place when the rudder is up, and gravity takes care of deploying it when I need it down. To bring it up, I just pull the rope, and the SmartTrack rudder system comes right up. Everything was fine, until it wasn't.

It took a couple of examinations to determine the problem, and ultimately it's easier to show before I try to explain.

This is what a good rudder assembly is supposed to look like. Note the arched piece at the top.

Good Rudder.

This is what mine looked like. In fact, you can't see from this angle, but it looked more like two offset half-arches. In this photo, you can make out a white fracture line where the plastic was already starting to bend.

Bad Rudder.

Before we get into the assembly/disassembly process though, there was a minor detour in getting the right part. Essentially, you can't buy just that little arched piece. You don't have to buy an entire ne rudder kit (nearly $200), but you do have to by the control sub-assembly.

When I first ordered it, I said it was a Tiderace Pace with a SmartTrack rudder system. My friendly regional kayak parts supplier  (Tom) sent me a replacement - and only after taking it apart did I notice that the Pace uses a "compact" sub-assembly, and by default I'd gotten the "original". 

They're kind enough to print it right on the tin, so to speak.

Compact vs. Original

I thought I might make it work, but even the mounting bracket is a different size - off just enough that you can't mix and match.

Thankfully, Tom was able to find the correct part and send it to me. We managed to overlap each other's efforts to - at one point I wrote SmartTrack asking about the right part, and had some correspondence that went something like this (I'm paraphrasing).

Kayak Cowgirl: Hey there, I'm looking for the correct rudder assembly a 2012 Tiderace Pace 18. I asked my friendly region kayak parts guy to help me out, but thought I'd ask around as well.

SmartTrack: Oh yeah, Tom contacted us already and we shipped it to him. 

Sure enough, the right part arrived a day or two later, not to mention an earlier email from Tom.

I'd been dreading taking this apart, because the mechanical complexity of rudders kinda scares me. However, replacing the part pretty easy. First, since I'd taken it apart previously, when I had the wrong part, I already knew what to do. Second, even that first time, since the control cables and pedals were fine, all I really had to do was detach the control cables from the sub-assembly, and change the foil from one to the other.

The cables are kept on with a simple pin and cotter pin arrangement. The pin goes through the wings of the sub-assembly and a round attach point on the cable, and the cotter pin holds it in place.

Controls Assembled.

To take them apart, you have to carefully (very carefully, if you're working over a plank-decked floor directly over water) take the cotter pin off like a key ring, then pull the pin loose.

Once you do that, removing the sub-assembly is as easy as pulling out the long vertical pin, which you can make out in the first pictures.

I also had to move the foil - my only replacement part was the sub-assembly that the rudder foil sits in. That was pretty easy. Another, larger cotter pin holds in place an adjustment knob that fastens on the opposite side, sandwiching the arm of the sub-assembly.

It's pretty neat. It turns out the spring is adjustable. With the adjustment knob on, you can tighten the coiled spring pictured below, to add a little pop to your deployment.

Ultimately, the hardest part of this whole process was threading the deployment cord through the new part. You can see above that the end of the cord gets tucked in a hole, tied off in a wee knot. To thread it, I had to undo the knot, and that took some pliers and an f-tonne of patience. I have a marlinspike knife, but doubt even that could have gotten in to such a tiny knot.

Annnnnnd . .. that was that. Once I threaded the deployment cord, I tied a new knot and threaded it into the foil. The blad was mounted, the sub-assembly was mounted, I put back the control pins, and tested a couple of deploy/retracts from the cockpit. Perfect. Like butter.

I can't want to paddle the Pace again. I've been favoring the Gemini, which is better for teaching, but I've got some journeys planned that will definitely be Pace-perfect.

Care and Maintenance

It's winter time, so guess what time it is for kayakers?

What time is it, Cowgirl?

While I'd normally say time for winter paddling, which I have done and will continue to do, it's also time for repairs. Inspecting your boat and taking care of any little things going on with it.

Today I pulled the Gemini SP off the rack to take a closer look at some things that have been bothering me for a few months.

I had three goals: clean the skeg, protect the hatch covers, and inspect the remaining mechanicals and lines on the boat.

First, the skeg.

Tools at the ready.

I've taken apart the Argonaut's skeg before, and while the control box is different on the Gemini, the overall approach is the same. Since then, I've bought tools that are useful for these kinds of repairs, including both metric and imperial folding Allen wrenches, and a small set of vice grips, which I keep in a little tin I got from and international flight on Turkish Airlines.

The problem I've been having is that I couldn't deploy the skeg, yet on land I could pull it free by hand easily, and work it up and down. After some earlier checking, I determined that is was likely sand in the tube. That was my theory, anyway.

Note paper placed below to prevent screws from dropping through cracks.

Here you can see the controller. Basically, the steel cable that controls the skeg itself feeds up through plastic conduit inside the boat until it gets to the controller. The slidy-box thing with the five screws is just a housing - a thing for the control rod to to move through.

That rod extends to the right of the housing, and is in fact a hollow tube that the cable feeds through. The handle at the far left in this photo has a small screw inside that tightens down on the end of the cable, through a hole in that rod. Basically, the handle pinches the end of the cable, and everything else just keeps the cable straight as it comes into and out of the conduit.

All the skeg controller screws are Allen head.

Blurry - basically the housing detached, rod still in place.

Rod with the handle removed. See the hole for a screw to pinch the cable? 

Once I had the handle off, I noticed corrosion on the end of the cable. Not a whole lot, but definitely rusty red. I also found, and cleaned out, sand between the hull and the housing.

Satisfied with my dismantling of the slider hosing, I checked the cable on the skeg itself. To my surprise, there was nearly no corrosion here. While you can't see it in the photo below, it looked at first like there was no kink, but I found a slight bend further up when I hyper-extended the skeg.

I spent a lot of time working the cable up and down. I also splashed some water on it, hoping it would work its way down the tube. However, I was becoming convinced that there wasn't so much sand in the conduit itself.

The skeg end of the cable.

My original plan was to pull the cable completely out, and then to flush water through, and wipe down the cable. But, as I worked things along, the cable seemed fine to a point, and I was a little worried I'd have trouble threading the cable through if I got it all the way out. It's not hard, but it requires more time and finesse than I had at hand.

I also noticed a slight kink in the cable near the skeg end. It's not noticeable in the photo above, but when I hyper-extended the skeg, I could make it out. I've seen worse. As I continued working the cable back and forth, I found that it was pretty smooth, except for pulling the skeg up an additional quarter-inch to be flush with the keel of the boat.

That much, I can live with. I'll replace the cable eventually, but for now, I've got it working better than it was. I can pull it flush for storage, and when I go to see, just give it a little pull to get it in position to be deployable when needed.

I removed the controller housing completely and ran water through it, then a twisted-up paper towel, to get any grime and sand out. I did the same with the control rod as well, even though nothing is supposed to be moving internally in it.

I put the entire assembly back together and tested it out, then moved on to some other things.

For one, I rinsed my hatch covers and then dried them off, then applied 303 protectant to them. I'd removed the hatched from the lines I used to tether them as well, so that I could wipe 303 into the rims. The 303 spray shields hatch covers from the sun's ultraviolet rays, which can degrade the material. Even though I store my boat in a boathouse, well-shielded from the sun, it's a wise protective move given how frequently I paddle.

I inspected all my deck lines and bungies. They're all in good shape, though I can see the start of some thread fraying on one stretch of bungie. Surprise, it's the area I use the most, to secure my water bottle, or pump, or camera.

The last thing I checked (other than the seat, which was fine, just fine) was the pair of foot pegs. The right peg was fine. The left, not so much.

I couldn't open the cleat that keeps it secure. I use my vice grips to finally get them open, but even after that, the peg would not slide along the track. I got out a hammer and tapped it forward, but even that didn't budge it much.

Finally, I resorted to removing it from my boat, but removing the two screws that pierce the hull and attached to the rails. Once out, I was able to rinse and remove the peg. I made sure to get all the sand and grime off, and got the foot peg to slide again.

Problem parts, taken apart !

One note about re-assembling the foot peg and track: you need to put the peg on before re-attaching the rail to the boat. Once the screws are in, they block the peg from sliding on (or off) the rail. Minor thing that I had to figure out.

I wiped out some sand left in my boat, and rinsed along the bulkhead seams. The last thing I want is for some sand and water to freeze in a crack and expand later.

I'm sure I'll paddle my boat some more in the winter, but I was happy with this little inspection and repair. I've got one last thing to follow up on later (the skeg cable) but other wise the Gemini SP is in good shape!

Now I'll just have to make time for its bigger and older sibling, the Argonaut. . .

RIgging

I made time last weekend to re-run some deck and elastic lines on the Argonaut. I replaced most of the elastics last year, but ran short, and in any case the deck lines were loose and hard to change.

I bought some of both from Toms Top Kayaker, making sure to buy the narrower 1/4 gauge line than the more robust 3/8 I bought last year. On my Valley boat, it makes a huge difference.

One thing I tried to replicate was the knotting the original owner put in the deck lines; he said this made rescues easier. While I think that's true, it also makes the lines harder to adjust, especially after the knots have had time to set in salt water and get nice and tight. The result is that when they lose tension, they're a real pain to reset.

What I ended up doing, to save time as much as anything else, was knotting the aft deck lines but not the fore deck lines. I'll see how I like each and change when I'm ready.

I splurged and got reflective deck lines. It doubled the cost, but was still affordable.

The elastics were simpler, and more necessary. Basically the small triangular areas near the ends of the boat were still the worn elastics from when I bought it; I restrung those.

I'd also run short on the fore deck elastics last year, meaning my spare paddle was always perched rather precariously - now I've got one more loop, giving them better purchase.

I got kinda creative with the aft deck elastics. The attach points on the Argonaut, coupled with the day hatch placement, make finding a really efficient layout really challenging. I didn't want a line over the hatch, and wanted to avoid running parallel with the deck lines. I ended up with a nice triangle, with a line parallel to the starboard deck line near the hatch.

Gelcoat Repair

Over a year later, I finally got on some gelcoat work for my boat.

The background is that last year, my boat took a couple of bonks on the nose, cracking the gelcoat. I had a local shop put some fiberglass bandages on it, and those have held well. I shouldn't have to do anything more, but it's a cosmetic issue that's been bugging me.


Here is what it looked like before.

With a similar, but longer would up front, which I'll get to in a bit.

I started by masking the area off, with masking tape and then blue painter's tape.

After cleaning the area with acetone (formerly classified as a neurotoxin, according to one friend), I started sanding away with 220 grit sandpaper - a tad shy of the 300 someone had recommended.

Eventually I got it mostly smoothed out.

I would end up doing the same for the bow wounds - similar, but a little more awkward given their proximity to the front hatch (which, I should add, has been bone dry this whole time). I also had to unfasten the deck line grommets.

I filed that down as well. then I got to the gel coat part.

Here is where I was very fortunate, and my patience paid off. I had actually contacted the manufacturer of my boat, Valley Sea Kayak, about matching the color. Valle is based in the UK, and there are regulations against shipping gelcoat by mail or in luggage. However, the pigment is OK. As it happened, I had a friend living in Scotland last year, and I was able to get a sample of the gel pigment shipped to her for free - and she brought it back in her luggage!

This is a major win. If you research gel coat repair at all, color matching is the hard part. People will mix different proportions of standard colors to get just the right shade of yellow, or red, or even "off white" as can be had. Here I had the same pigment used by the manufacturer to color my boat. The only concern I would have would be the saturation of the color.

My mixing tools: gel coat, pigment,, utensils.

I won't go into the details of gel repair - there are better videos and articles than I have time to write. Suffice it to say, I had clear gel that I mixed with pigment. Once satisfied with the amount and color, I added hardener and applied using a brush.

If I ever do this again, I will use foam brushes, not hair brushes. I found myself picking hairs out of the applied gel, and then having to smooth that out.

Once applied, I taped plastic warp over it. I ought to have done a better job smoothing it out: the gel hardens in the form it takes.I'll have a lot of sanding to do.

So the next day I came back after the gel had cured. I am mostly pleased with the results. The blue is a bit stronger than the rest of my boat, but at this point I think that may just be because the rest of the boat has over twelve years of weather (and a recent muddy trip to Piermont Marsh).

With the masking removed, the patched areas look pretty good.

  

I spent an hour or so sanding, now with finer grain paper - 400 and 600. I think it will take quite a bit more work, and I'm considering buying or borrowing an orbital to get it sorted. I'll post more pictures when it's done, but for now, I'm reasonably pleased with the results.

Other Boats

I spent some time working on the Argonaut today, subject for another post, and so to meet my paddling needs I took out another couple of boats: "Baby Blue", a Sawyer canoe, and a fell club member's Boreal Design Ellesmeere.

The canoe was fun, larking about in front of some friends. The paddles I used were alternately too short and too long for proper canoeing, but I managed to get about. At one point I switch to a kayak paddle. I noodled around a bit, eventually tying it to a bolt and climbing out on a rail while our ramp was being refurbished.

The Ellesmere was a dream to paddle. it's a hard-chined boat, and I could totally feel the difference. Putting that boat on an edge, it would stay there. I could park on my side. Turning was so much easier than in the Argonaut, and so much more stable than other "shallow V" or soft-chined boats.

That said, the Ellesmere has an ocean cockpit. While it's something I've been meaning to try, it was harder to get in and out on the dock. I'm not as worried about ejecting if I need to, but still, I tok it easy.

Winter Skeg Repair

Last summer, and again in the fall, I replace a kinked skeg cable on my own boat, a VCP Argonaut. While there was a fair amount of detail, once I learned the basic mechanism of a skeg, it was very straightforward: loosen two screws, essentially, and pull the bad cable; put in the new cable, trim to fit, and then tighten the screws. Voila, repair complete.

Thus, under the rubric of, "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing", I offered to repair the skeg cable on one of my club's older boats, a plastic WS Tempest 170. What could go wrong?

Lots.

I thought it would be helpful to write up details of that repair, for my own review as well as an informational to others (whether a warning, or a guide, actual mileage may vary). I also feel like I owe an explanation to some of my fellow clubmates, on why something so simple dragged on for months.  While in retrospect, it was ultimately a simple repair, the entire effort was confounded by weather, mistakes, and some additional components that required repair.

Additionally, In my day job, I work as a systems engineer, and when something goes wrong, we always review and document what went wrong in order to learn from it: how the problem can be prevented, and more quickly resolved, in the future. I and those who assisted me learned a lot from this repair, and hopefully, the complexity we encountered here won't deter us from future attempts at reviving our fleet.

Where possible, I've added photos and video.

I also want to put in a few good words about Tom Holtey at Tom's Top Kayaker Shop in New Hampshire. I first found Tom's shop when I needed to replace the day hatch cover on my VCP Argonaut, and I turned to him again for my own skeg cable repair (and again, when I kinked it by sliding the control knob against a support beam while pulling the boat out). Tom was a great help in researching some of the more picayune details of this repair, and easy to work with when I needed to return a part and order another. I got nothing but fair and square dealings from him, and recommend him for advice and guidance on kayak repairs.

The Issue:
Skeg cannot be lowered using the control mechanism. The skeg can be forcefully pulled down about three-quarters of the way, and can be pulled up to the one-quarter mark using the control mechanism, but otherwise is not functional.

Initial Assessment:
Assessment occurred in two phases, as more elaborate disassembly was required to ascertain the secondary issue. The primary issue was that the skeg cable was kinked near the rear, a common issue for skegs that occurs when the weight of the boat rests on a deployed skeg, i.e. someone forgot to retract it before pulling it out of the water. The secondary issue was that the sliding control rod, which is where the front of the cable goes, was slightly bent, and not moving straight; hence, even with a good cable, full control could not be restored until the rode was replaced.

Proposed resolution:
Replace the cable and the control rod.

For reference, here is a video of how to repair should go. The skeg blade in the video is the kind that we were dealing with - a detail that would become important later.

Aso for reference, here is a picture of how I dis-assembled the control mechanism on my own boat. I find this part to be the most difficult to explain to people. The only key difference is that the Tempest used a larger Phillips-head screw instead of a hex screw.

In the picture above, I've loosened the control knob to slide it over. You can see the skeg cable inside the control rode, through the hole between the two black markings where I had pre-marked the edges of where the knob should return to. In operation, the knob sits between those two marks, and the screw presses down on the cable, securing it. When you move the knob, the control rode and cable move with it. The knob does not slide along the tube.

Obstacle 01: Severely corroded cable and attach points hinder removal of the cable.
The first part was: there was a lot of corrosion on every metal piece involved. Detaching the cable from the blade itself was easy enough, but loosening the screw that holds the control knob fast was very difficult. Removing the cap at the fore of the cable tube was difficult, and was only made possible by later removing the entire assembly - which was also a chore. The control rod was slightly bent, hampering removal, and the cable itself could not be detached from the rod. Ultimately, I pulled the cable through the rear part of the way, cut the conduit, and then pulled it forward. That was easier than trying to get the rod through the fore or the aft. I would also end up replacing the set screw months later, when I realized it too was too corroded to be useful.

Here is a picture of the control rod, slightly bent. This was going to have to be replaced. I never did get it to detach from the cable, even after completely removing it.

For example of corroded metal, here is the aft end of the conduit. Simply disconnecting it was a huge challenge because the nut that held it in place was rusted together with the bolt, and at an odd angle to work with. This is actually one of the prettier-looking components.

Obstacle 02: Incorrect cable ordered.
This was an easy mistake. The cable repair kit is listed as a single kit, but on the order page, there are different SKUs for different model boats. If no selection is made, the first option - for a WS Tempest 165 - is entered. When I ordered, my eyes went to 'add to cart' first, and thinking there was one kit for all, I got the default kit. I wouldn't figure this out till I got stuck deciphering the instructions.

Here is a picture of our skeg. In the background, you can see the picture from the instructions.

On our skeg, the bottom edge of the blade is here on the left, and the top is on the right. The cable comes in from the top of the blade into the empty square, where the "set screw" sits (see below). The kit that I ordered was for a newer model Tempest, where 1) the cable comes in at the middle of the top edge, and 2) is held in place by a swage integrated with the cable, rather than a set screw.

Obstacle 03: Mismatch between skeg demonstrated in instruction set and actual skeg.
I didn't just order the wrong size (Tempest 165 instead of Tempest 170) - I ordered the "Premium Skeg Repair Kit", which is only for WS models from 2010 and later. The main difference is that the newer cables have an integrated cable swage (a block that holds the cable fast to the skeg). On the older models, they use what's called a "Cable Attachment Fixture with Set Screw", where instead of an integrated swage, the cable fits into a small brass block that has a 1/16' allen screw inside. I tried to make the cable work by snipping the swage and running it into the older brass set screw, but ultimately 1) the set screw needed to be replaced anyway and 2) the cable was too short because I had the wrong size.

Obstacle 04: Severely corroded cable set screw needed to be replaced.
This refers to the set screw described above. I was able to twist the old cable out of it, allowing me to remove the set screw. However, after some more close-up testing, it was clear the screw wouldn't tighten. It's hard to tell exactly what's wrong because it's an internal mechanism, but in and case, it wasn't going to hold the cable tight.

Here is the set screw, in place. You can see the cable coming down and entering the blade. The set screw faces after (the the right in the photo). However, we had to replace it as well.

Obstacle 05: Lost time attempting to fit cable and conduit to the incorrect part.
A lot of this experience was a learning process. I watched the videos, set aside tools, and the ran into, "hmm, it isn't going like it should". In some cases, this was due to screws and other fasteners that haven't been touched since the boat was built. In other cases, it was because of the wrong parts, or flat-out broken parts described above. I figure at least twelve to fifteen hours of effort were spent just trying to figure out what the heck was going wrong - and working just a couple of hours per weekend, with a wait of a week or so to get the next step figured out, that adds up to at least 4-6 weeks of lost time.

Obstacle 06: Lost time due to Hurricane Sandy, illness, and lost keys.
Similar to above, there were a few weekends where we didn't have access due in part to Sandy, and even when we did have access, there were a few weekends where everyone in our club was pitching in to clean up and then repair our facilities. I also caught a really bad cold that killed about two weekends in a row for me in February, and later, lost a set of keys that meant I had to coordinate access for a week or two while I got them replaced. That was probably the most frustrating period for me - the end was in sight, but all I all I could do was drink cough syrup and wait for keys. More than anything else though, working on this over the span of weeks rather than days meant having to get re-acquainted every time I came back to it.

Resolution:
Ultimately, I replaced the cable, cable conduit, control rod, and set screw. In so doing, I dismantled these components and also the fore tube where the rode slides into in the Up position. These efforts were hampered by corroded components, a bent control rod, irregular working conditions, and illness. However, once completed, the skeg is functional, fully capable of being extended and retracted fully from the cockpit.

Successful Repair Steps:
Ultimately, here's what happened, and which would have gone more smoothly given 20/20 hindsight (or is that foresight).

Remove the cable by detaching from skeg and disassembling forward tube at the start.
Order the  "Cable Attachment Fixture with Set Screw" for WS Tempest 170.
Order the replacement cable control rod.
Thread the cable from the after and control rod through the fore, and measure to fit.
Test mechanism and trim cable.
Attach set screw and control knob.