: I needed to clear my name and clarify a few things...

Hi Dan

That was a bit tough I thought. It's not as if you were doing anything but praising the product. I bought the skeg some long time ago. I Kind of felt that there was a slight bow in the cable when the skeg was fully deployed. In order to reduce this I too did a bit of judicious grinding on the skeg (a notch in the trailing edge at the shackle) to enable it to pivot with less cable bend. It's not that I am fussy, really, It's just that I want perfection.

I cannot see how this would in any way reduce the effectiveness of the skeg. Of course, one accepts, that as soon as one does such a thing one cannot go looking for a refund on the warranty.

In any event, once I have paid for the thing it is mine and I will adapt it in any way I care to, weather or not the item is improved by the adaptation or not is my own affair really, as long as I don't denigrate it afterward, which you certainly did not.

Although I am quite sure it would work flawlessly, I still have not actually installed the skeg. My hesitation is around the widening in the slot to enable the somewhat large forked shackle and clevis pin on the cable end to exit the casing. This widening does not in any way allow lateral movement of the skeg, and I know that the extra space is small by comparison to the huge crude skeg slots and resulting floppy skegs in many production boats, but that is partly why I build my own: I am just an uncompromising b**stard.

I am surely going to use the skeg at some stage, but I will most likely discard the box, or fill the wide part with some micro balloons, and adapt a different method to the shackle and clevis for deploying the skeg.

I have to say that the skeg is a thing of refined beauty. I wonder if Pat would be willing to sell just the skegs (without holes or cable attachments or casings? I'm sure he would have a market for them.

If you are still following this Pat. What about it?

Et