William Butler

Engineering comes with failures. It’s important to accept the failures and plan for improvement. When I designed the swim platform, my main goal was to build a large usable space. I was hoping to be able to put a couple of chairs back there and watch the sunset. The idea is fine for a lake boat but not for an ocean going vessel. Situations like following seas and “backing down” can cause massive pressure on the underside of an overhanging swim platform. I learned this first hand on the trip as we were leaving mobile bay for the panhandle. The platform didn’t fail catastrophically but it did lift up and one of the cantilever supports detached. Remarkably we lost no hardware. Jack and I removed it completely and stored it in the boat. Yesterday I reduced the overhand from 30 inches to 17 inches. My plan is to rehang it likely in Panama City. We are going to pull the boat out of the water to install the new prop. It’s balanced and pitched up from 17x19 to 17x22 with heavy cup. I’ll likely replace the rudder zinc at the same time.