Radar Mount

Raasay came with a very substantial base for a radar pole bolted through the afterdeck - the mount extended below the deck and was through bolted to the gas locker bulkhead.

It seemed a shame to waste it, so when I decided to fit a radar I wanted to use the mount.

I thought I'd make my own pole, and also thought I'd try making the mount tiltable.  The outcome is robust, but, I'm afraid, a bit ugly.  The first version was just the inverted 'y', plus the tilting bits - the uprights are ash.  Unfortunately this was not quite stiff enough so I put a single iroko stiffener up the back of it.  The result works, more or less.

The tilting mechanism is based on a big bottle screw from a junk box.  It's a bit stiff and slow.  That may be OK, as I mainly had long close reaches in mind rather than a beat.

I'll see how it goes.  Mk II will probably benefit from the experiment ...