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I certainly don't carry all of them with me.



Me neither, they rest nicely in my toolcase for the time when I plan to do maintainance and then I bring them along. Like I wrote earlier. My downhaul system hasn't required any of these tools since early 2005.

In the past I have used an electic drill with a screw bit to drill off the heads of plain alu rivets (not monel !). These are really soft. A sharp knock on the back of the electric drill was enough to knock them out. I always have a supply of rivets, bolts, shackles and other small stuff like eyes and lines in my small emergency part storage case that travels with the boat. I only had to find a guy with a rivet tang to complete the job and that was not too difficult either in a club with 100 boats in the parking. I used to have a small rivet tang in this storage case as well, but then I tried to pop stainless steel 5 mm rivets with it one time. That WAS a job too large for that little tang.

Honestly these jobs are pretty minor and easily performed. They may well look daunting at first but when done a few times you'll learn they are pretty easy and quick. Blind rivets are a great invention.

Wouter


Wouter Hijink
Formula 16 NED 243 (one-off; homebuild)
The Netherlands