and drill/rivet an inch or two away?
Not needed. 5 mm (1/5 inch) is the minimum (reposition) distance you should use but more 10 mm (1/3 inch) is point less.
About Monel metal, looking at the galvanic series, monel is much closer to stainless steel than it is to aluminum, so I don't see how monel rivets will cause any less corrosion than stainless.
That is not the point of using Monel rivets. Plain alu rivets are too weak to hold any significant amount of force that is not perpendicular to the rivet itself. Monel rivets are much stronger and will hold up. Stainless steel rivets are much stronger still but also alot harder to pop right. Most often you need a large special tang for pure stainless steel rivets. And as Monel is also halveway between alu and stainless steel in galvanic corrosion it is a good compromise material.
I used done alot of riveting with monel (I build my own beach cat) and I can assure you that monel rivets is what you need.
I've seen references to installing rivets "hot" or "wet" (what does that mean?), or with some "Goop" as an insulation barrier, but I don't know where to find that.
Goop is an insulator so that the two dissimilar materials don't touch and as such can't corrode in the galvanic sense. I've done both (insulated and non insulated) on my boats in the past. Personally I found the corrosion to be quite slow even if you don't used an insulator. My spinnaker poles have held up non-anodised and non insulated for 5 years already without any significant corrosion and I store my boat on the beach and in the salty winds for 6 months a year.
So I decide to use the insulator on items like the mast as I want that to survive for 20 years or so. But I often "forget" it on spi poles and boom and other parts that are easily replaced for low costs and often break in some way of manner before 10 years has passed.
If you want to use an insulator then look for duralac, that is specially made for this purpose.
Wouter
