Grinding wheel too
It’s true, it’s almost impossible to cut with any regular tools. I use a little grinding wheel in my drill.
Wire, rather than cable?
I’m surprised at the interest, here. The Necky wire on my wifes Chatham 17 required two hands and a foot to retract the skeg. I replaced it with 1/8" stainless cable, and it became a one finger operation. I was even able to re-route the cable enough to gain access to the hatch opening. Ken…
I’ll be you could sell the wire…
– Last Updated: Dec-31-08 10:45 AM EST –
...if you still have it.
I owned a boat that used 1/16" stainless wire instead of a cable. It worked fine and never gave me any trouble. Wire is actually better than cable in that it can handle both tension and compression loads. The only reason that skeg cables are as thick as they are (typically 1/8") is because they're being asked to deal with compression loads that they're not designed for. A 1/16" cable would be much more than strong enough if it was used only tension.
I'm surprised that nobody makes a skeg system that uses fine cables in a continuous loop. The same plastic tubing that's used with 1/8" cable can easily handle two strands of 1/16" or smaller cable, so a continuous loop around the skeg blade wouldn't require any special rigging. What it would require is a redesigned control mechanism.
Maybe something like
the bungee used on the rope skegs to deploy? HMMMM
Cable vs: "Necky wire."
I understand your thinking, and even agree, as the wire control in my Foster Legend works flawlessly. The wire in my wifes Chatham 17, not only required a great deal of force, but was routed in such a way as to bisect the rear hatch opening. Any attempt to re-route the cable only increased the amount of effort to operate it. Maybe an excellant example of a good idea, poorly executed. We have never had any problem with cable kinking on any of our boats, but I have replaced a few for others. I do think occasional removal and cleaning of the cable, and flushing of the housing, helps a great deal. By the way, I enjoy your intelligent responses to this discussion panel. Come on down and paddle with us some winter, here in sunny Daytona! Ken…
Cutting skeg control cable.
Hard to do with typical shop tools, but: measure it precisely, and West Marine will cut it for you, through a wrapping of tape, with a proper cable cutter. Has worked well for me. Ken…
Bad fitting job then
and yeah, some were. Done correctly it’s like butter.
It would be interesting to see…
…how a smaller diameter Nitinol wire would work. It should eliminate the fiction issues, but I don’t know if it would allow you to reposition it or not.
I don’t get to FL often, but perhaps next time I visit my father…
No, it would be more like…
… a rudder cable setup, where the actuation is always done by pulling on the cable, one side or the other. Of course for a skeg system, the cables would be thinner, shorter and I think looping it around at the skeg would make more sense than having separate cables.
I’m mulling over a few designs for retrofitting my boats.