First he fabricated a couple of aluminum cross bars. Next he spent many nights in the garage designing and cutting beefy attachment blocks out of a 1 1/2" thick Starboard (the biggest thickness they make) - again purchased from Buck Woodcraft.
Equally big U bolts would pull it all together. A test run on an old piece of galvanized pipe the same diameter as the tuna tower allowed Tom to see just how it would or wouldn't work and make adjustments.
All of this work paid off once we got to s/v Honey Ryder and began mounting it for real. We were able to muscle the panel into place atop the tuna tower. Both of us precariously balance on the rail, we worked together holding onto the panel, measuring to get it centered front to back, and carefully putting the blocks into place so we could mark the aluminum cross bars for drilling. Then we took the whole thing down off the boat so we could drill the holes. We removed the cross bars and took them up to the top of the dock for drilling. Tom found he had to wobble out the holes on the cross bars to get the U bolts to fit through all the thickness.
The next step was to mount it all officially. Once again we muscled it into place atop the tuna tower and wedged ourselves on the rail. We put the blocks into place, wiggled the U bolts up into the blocks, and GINGERLY places the washers and nuts on to secure it all. We only lost one U bolt into the drink during this process but Tom had extras just for that reason. It turned out that the U bolts were too long. Once it was screwed down there was very little clearance between the nut and the bottom of the solar panel. Any fluctuating of the panel (due to high winds, heavy rain or waves pooping on it) might push the panel down enough to puncture it on the nut in a rare case but none the less Tom just didn't like such a slim clearance.
Plan B - Move the attachment point for aluminum cross bars to outside of the solar panel frame vs the inside thus giving us an extra 1/4". So we carefully switch one around to test it - all while dangling under the tuna tower. We only lost one nut into the drink during this stage. No worries, Tom had extra. We decided that it still didn't have enough clearance.
Plan C - cut a little off each U bolt. This would require finding someone with some sort of beefy cutting wheel, perhaps the marina yard or a machine shop. A few inquires with seasoned cruisers soon lead to sound advice - "suck it up and do it yourself!" Bill said "the yard will charge you $75 an hour. Your Dremmel will do it but it will just take you lots of time and several blades. However $15 in blades and doing it yourself is better than paying some knucklehead that might goof it all up." Well said Bill!
So Tom busted out his handy vise, 3 packages of 2" blades and set up Tom's Machine shop at the top of the dock. One U bolt was lost in this process - note: measure twice, cut once is a wise practise. Spares to the rescue. Finally he got them all cut so we were really for another run at mounting it. We got all the U bolts shoved into place and carefully racked down tight without loosing any additional pieces or tools. Yay us!!! It is going to work just fine. Mounting of new solar panel...Check mark- complete! Next step is wiring it all up. But that is for another day.
Awesome job, you two! Reminds me of a lot of boat (and house) projects we tackled over the years. I even bought Barry the book Measure Twice, Cut Once -- so very true. But that's how you learn, and I'm delighted that you figured out a Plan, er, C! :)
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