I am building the SailRig for my Mill Creek 16.5. There are NO details on attaching the aft aka to the Mill Creek 16.5 over the open cockpit. I was able to figure out the aft aka is 48 inches from the fore aka, but the details on the spacers and how they interact with the coming is completely missing. I figured I would cut a notch for the coming, but the cypress blanks that CLC provided is not long enough to fit the width of the Mill Creek 16.5 (roughly 48 inches from the front of the nose block). I’m thinking of doubling the width of aka spacers to provide more stability and strength. Any one have any experience with a Mill Creek 16.5 and the SailRig? Pics would help a lot. Thanks in advance.
I adapted my SailRig to fit onto a Storer “Viola 14”, which, like the Mill Creek, has a large open cockpit. It was originally on my Woodduck 12. The cypress spacers do not have to span the entire cockpit. They just have to sit on top of the side decks. You can see the spacers on the photo. Mine were probably too high, but I wanted to make sure that I could sail the boat without the side hulls constantly being immersed in the water and creating unnecessary drag.
Peter, thanks for the info and the pics. Very helpful. Looks like your cypress spacers are much thicker than mine, I was thinking about gluing/epoxy two cypress boards together to get the spacers a little beefier.
Yes, I made the spacer blocks thicker due to wanting to use bolts to attach them to the akas. Probably overkill, but they did the job. I padded the undersides with leather, attached with contact cement, to save the paint on the side decks. Post a picture when you get it all assembled, please.