With the boat finally in the workshop it was time to get started on a few easy things. The first being the new fairleads.

These are the old ones and whilst they are nice, the lines running through the fairleads a prone to jumping out.

The lines then rub on the wood of the boat rather than the bronze of the fairlead as can be seen here.

I bought a pair of handed, lip-over fairleads. The lip-over means that they bend over the edge of the boat as you can see above and handed means that there is one for the starboard side and one for the port and you have to get them the correct way around. You can see that the slot is angled backwards so that the line pulling forward is much less likely to be able to pop out of the fairlead.

I took the time to inspect the damage to the transom caused by leaving the rudder on the boat when not in use. The wave action has caused bronze metal on the rudder to bash against the transom and crack the paint and the sheathing below.

A closer look at the top fitting shows the damage to the paint.

The bottom fitting has broken through the sheathing as you can see on the left hand side.

When I removed the gudgeon & pintle from the transom, two of the screws sheared off deep inside the wood. My first thought was simply to move the fixing point up about 5 mm and fill in the original holes, but instead I used the smallest hole saw I had to cut out a plug of wood with the broken screw point inside it. The above is the top one done.

This is the bottom one.

Parts of the plugs removed showing the bronze remains of the broken screw.

To fill the holes I cut a piece of Sapele to a square section just a fraction larger that the holes and using the lathe I turned this down until it almost fitted into the holes.

This was finished off with 150 grit sandpaper to a size just smaller than the holes.

Test fitting the dowel to ensure that it really does fit.

Two lengths of the dowel were cut to fit in the holes. 

You can see that there is a small gap around the dowel in the lower hole, possibly due to my wobbling the hole saw when cutting. However, this is a good thing since if the dowel is too tight, it will push out the glue when I come to stick them in place. That's why dowels you buy are fluted and not smooth. The flutes allow some of the glue to remain in the joint. I'll need to do something similar to these dowels before I glue them.

I'll probably also put two pads on the transom to move the gudgeon & pintle away from the transom by 10mm or so. That should ensure that the fitting on the rudder stock will not damage the transom any more.

More tasks ticked off the list.

Time for a cuppa.