Securing the Radar Mounting

 

Radar Mounting post was attached to the Backstay Bridle

When we purchased Eximius in 2015, the Radar Mounting post was braced by an aluminum tube that was attached to the Backstay just above the Bridle. So many things wrong with that even though many sailboats have the Radar mounted on or by the Backstay.

When adding our new solar panels after the Backstay was modified when we replaced the Standing Rigging in March this year, the Bridle is now about 8' above the solar panels but I still did not want to attach the Radar mount to the backstay.

This is the setup for the new panels supported on a  4040 Aluminum Extrusion frame, looks very neat and clean.

The Radar Pole was supported also with a strut that passed through the port side of the Bimini frame which prevented a Cockpit full enclosure. I removed that strut during the installation of the new solar panels.

There's one more supporting strut, it's an Aluminum tube attached near the top of the Radar Pole and lower down to the top of the aft railing near the Outboard Motor & Mount.

Plan its to replace that Aluminum tube with a Stainless steel tube.

Here's the schematic of the brace that will attach the Radar Pole to the Solar Mounting frame. Basically a piece of 4040 Extrusion, secured to the Port side Solar Mounting Beam at one end and attached to the Radar Mounting post on the other with a Stainless Steel Pipe Clamp.

Just need to measure the distance from the Solar Mounting Beam to the Pole, cut the piece of 4040 and shape the end to the curve of the Radar Post, then straighten out the Pipe Clamp and secure it in place using a couple of M6 bolts and T-Nuts.

Easy ( hope that doesn't come back and bite me. )

Ok, it really was that easy! After shaping the curved end of the 4040 extrusion using a grinding wheel on my cordless 4.5" angle grinder, down at the boat it took all of 10 minutes to install the bracing beam.

All done! 

The strap is really secure. Sorry about the surface corrosion on the Radar Mounting Pole, it's not a 316 SS pole!

Also, note the hanging wire with a ring terminal crimped to the end. That's a left over from the PO, I think he used it as a HF antenna for receiving Net messages in the Bahamas. I may do something with that sometime when the project list is getting thinner.

Also, note the cables from the Solar panels. they are just hanging there at the moment.

Plan is to enclose them inside of a Plastic Conduit from a Box mounted beneath the panels and then entering the boat through a conduit 90º elbow and into the side of the combing near the base of the Radar pole. That should eliminate the UV damage the cables are suffering. Of course, those cable are a single length from the panel connections all the way down to the Circuit breaker adjacent to the Victron MPPT solar charge controller.

That's a higher priority than the HF antenna mentioned earlier.

This pic shows the beam in place. Note that the bolts used on the 4040 extrusions are not SS and they have surface corrosion already, that's less than a month. 

I have plenty of those bolts, so I'll spray the bolts and the install them with some TefGel as they are mounted in Aluminum, hence the differential metal corrosion.

Changing them out will be easy but will involve some boat yoga.

Easy peezy.

We're looking for a weather window to take the boat out. It will have to be via Port Everglades as the Hillsboro Inlet is still having shoaling problems and with 6' of the boat below the waterline, shoaling around 6' will see us hit bottom in any kind of wave action. 

See you on the water.

Paul