Don Foreman wrote:
On Fri, 10 Sep 2010 13:51:38 -0500, CaveLamb
wrote:

Don Foreman wrote:
On Thu, 09 Sep 2010 23:22:09 -0500, CaveLamb
wrote:

I was digging around looking for a cheaper 12 volt linear actuator
(for remote steering outboard motor) and came across this site..

https://www.surpluscenter.com/home.asp

http://www.surpluscenter.com/prodIndex.asp#LL

enjoy!
Sounds like an interesting project.
Interesting - as in "may you live in interesting times"?
Or maybe more to the point...
"Necessity is the mother of some really strange kids"?

mega-snip

(Honey! Where's the remote???)

Keep us posted!

Thanks Don, but I'll not pursue that one.

I'm a charter member of the "keep is simple and stupid" fan club.
(Ed Heinemann was my favorite hero - "Simplicate and add lightness!)

Sailing is not always blue blazers and white duck trousers.

All the things we do on the boat have to be "do-able" in 30+
knots wind, with the boat pitching and rolling, green water
washing over the deck, in pitch dark, while trying to do something
else at the same time.

So my boat systems tend to be simple, manually powered where possible,
and take as little training to operate as I can arrange.

We have GPS and an autopilot. But they don't get used very much.

This winter, when I pull the boat (gads! in a month or so???).
We'll pull the motor off and move it to the starboard side (and
swap the back stay to port - where it should have been in the
first place).

We have a slight list to port because all the heavy stuff is installed
on the port side. So moving the motor over will make a big difference.

That puts the motor's tiller side where it can be reached from the cockpit,
and a hickory stick about 2-1/2 feet long will solve all my silly problems -
as far as steering the motor goes, anyway.
It's pretty hard to get any simpler than that.

I'd like to do away with the swing up motor mount as well. It's an extra
step required to deploy the motor and it can't be done from the cockpit.
(BEsides, the girls simply can't do it. (or won't - not that there's much
difference)





There are two pics of the mount I'd like to find at the bottom of the
page...
http://www.home.earthlink.net/~capri26/motor.htm

But it seems like nobody makes that simple mount any more (not even China).

I think it would be pretty simple for a real metal smith to make.
Heavy stainless steel sheet, cut, bent, welded.

If anybody knows where to find one, I'll email your favorite libation
for a link!

Or, if anybody would be interested in making one, I'd pay gladly for it!

--

Richard Lamb