Thanks for the website, Tod! Love the high-school team idea. :-) My Monty's former owner replaced her boards with ash: I agree that the contrast is beautiful. The former owner's workmanship was pretty good and I like the result. ----- Original Message ----- From: <htmills@bright.net> To: ">Mboats<" <montgomery_boats@mailman.xmission.com> Sent: Tuesday, April 09, 2002 9:47 PM Subject: M_Boats: boat cradle, water levels, hatchboards, & rudders Hmmmm......just had an interesting thought: 750# / 12people = about 63 each. Pretty manageable. Plus a few extras to wheel away the trailer and a few extras to scoot the cradle under. High school wrestling or football team oughta do it no problem. Heck, you hear about kids moving cars around. REALLY Quick and easy. Everybody has to bring their own pair of heavy gloves so the gunwale doesn't dig into palms. :-) ***************** Craig, here's historical water levels and predicted levels published by the army corps of engineers: http://www.lre.usace.army.mil/levels/bltnhmpg.html ***************** By golly, these ash hatchboards just might look pretty good. Because my cuts across the joints weren't perfect (hand-cut) I added an oak strip along the edge. The oak strip also stiffens the boards and also contrasts nicely with the very light ash. Had to stop the strip just shy of the ends to clear the companionway trim. I'm sealing up the first one tonight (and sealing side two of the rudder). ***************** Someone on the Potter message board had an interesting idea for tiller/rudder attachment that allows them to leave the tiller attached to the rudder for trailering: the tiller folds back 270* so that it's parallel to the trailing edge of the rudder. That would be pretty nice, I think. Another thing that would be nice would be a heavy lined canvas bag to store the rudder in to protect it from parking lot stones and other dings. Tod _______________________________________________ http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/montgomery_boats