Okay guys, something that can only be looked upon as shocking has happened over the weekend:
I was visited at a boat race by the one and only Astrohog!!!! What could be worse is I think he might have actually enjoyed it. The only bad part is I was so busy working on my boat that I didn't even know he was there
Unfortunately, on Friday, we had a test session and, apparently, I hit something in the water, seriously damaging my rudder bracket assembly. I spent several hours doing deconstructive surgery on the boat to get the now damaged assembly off and to reroute the rudder pushrod. Saturday, thinking it was going to be a quick and easy install of a new rudder assembly, I packed my stuff up and headed to the lake. From what I can tell, just after Astro got to the pond was when I had to head home and to the local Lowes for more tools and supplies. Took me pretty much all day to get the new rudder assembly installed and, after letting the epoxy I used to back up the hardware cure overnight, I was "ordered" to give the boat a test run. It was amazing how well the boat ran with the new set up. Too bad Astro wasn't there today to see it. Anyway, now I have other things to do to the boat before I head to my next race, including surgery on the engine
I'll post some pictures to show the different set up later