OAR RIGHTY THEN: A PORTA BOAT REPAIR

Tweet

Funny how things keep getting pushed up to the top of the list due to unexpected repairs. The other night I took the dinghy ashore to get some provisions. As usual I took the oars and put them in the car. Leaving them in the dingy is like leaving the keys in the ignition IMO. When I got back and pulled the oars out of the back one of the oars pulled apart.

The Oars that come with the Porta Boat are aluminum and have a metal pin the secures them together. After ten years in the salt water environment the pins on my oars rusted out. So I just used duct tape to secure them temporarily. Well that "temporary" fix lasted two years which is not bad,  But, a more permanent solution was now needed. But, first I had to get back to BIANKA. Unfortunately, I did not have any duct tape in the car. Only some paper tape which was certainly not strong enough to hold the oars together. So I improvised by inserting a 1/4 inch screw into the hole the rusted out pin used to use. Then I used the paper taper around the screw to hold it in place:

It worked long enough to row back to the boat. But, a more permanent repair was needed. Since I never really took the Oars apart all I needed to do was make sure my repair was strong enough to keep the Oar halves together. For that the I decided to use some  West System G/Flex Epoxy Adhesive  I have on board.

First I had to get rid of the old Duct tape residue and clean the joint area:

I used a 3M 220-8-CC 6-Inch by 9-Inch Scotch-brite Heavy Duty Scour Pad  and some Denatured Alcohol to remove the of remnants of the Duct Tape:

This did a good job cleaning and roughing up the joint of the two oar pieces. I then mixed a small batch of the West System G/Flex Epoxy Adhesive :

I coated both pieces of the oar joints with the epoxy mixture and put them together:

I then covered the epoxied joint with some new Duct Tape to protect the epoxy and joint from any degrading effects of the sun:

The new repair of the Oar should last a number of years if my previous experience is any indication.  With this emergency repair done it's time to move on to the next project of the list.
Tweet

OAR RIGHTY NOW!

While there are things on board that can wait to be done like my overflowing project box. Then are somethings that are on the must do/ASAP list. Like repairing the oars for my Porta Boat dingy. I've mentioned before how I am really glad I purchased my Porta Boat dingy and am surprised that I don't see more of them on cruising sail boats. Mine has worked well for ten years despite the abuse I give it. That's ten years of folding and unfolding dragging it up on rocky Isle of Long beaches etc. So I should not have been surprised when heading back to the boat from a grocery trip one of the oars started to separate despite my gaffer tape fix of a few years ago. So after ten years in a salt water environment it was obviously time to fix the oar in a more permanent fashion.

The Porta Boat's lightweight  oars are made up of aluminum and plastic. They are also meant to be taken apart for easy storage:

What holds them together is a metal pin locking tab which several years ago rusted away hence my Gaffers Tape repair that held up for several years. I probably could have extended it's life rinsing the oars with fresh water from time to time but, like I said the dingy and the oars were not treated with kid gloves by me. So it goes.

The first step was to clean the oar pieces a little where they joined together:

I used some denatured alcohol and a 3M Scrubber pad to remove some of the tarnish on the pieces:

Since I never really took apart the oars in ten years as they were just thrown into the back of the car with the other pieces of the Porta Boat. I did not need to be concerned with ever taken them apart. I used some West System Gflex epoxy mixed with some low density filler smeared it around the oar pieces where they joined together and pushed them together. After the Epoxy cured I wrapped some more gaffers tape around the joint for good measure and to cover the hole where the pin use to be. The tape will help prevent water from getting inside the oar tubes through the locking pin hole:

I was thinking instead of using the gaffers tape I might have used some safety reflective tape instead. I would have served the same purpose but, might have provided a little more visibility when rowing through an anchorage at night. It certainly would not hurt.

CAPT. MIKE SIDE NOTE: I had an interesting discovery when using the Gflex Epoxy for this repair. I placed a scrap piece of plexiglass I had on board under the oar joint to catch any of the epoxy that leaked out of the joint. I found that the Gflex was stuck pretty tenaciously to the Plexiglass it dripped on. I also found that the epoxy also flexed rather well when I bent the plexiglass as shown below:

These properties of the Gflex epoxy gave me some ideas of using it on some future projects on board which I'll post about later.