The shifter on my gear pedistal is held on by a screw – this had already given way once (and was the first repair I did) and it gave way again when I was on a docking lesson – luckily in the middle of the channel.

One thing you want to be ABSOLUTELY SURE of when docking is that the shifter works, so I decided to do a modification.

First, using a carbide drill bit, I drilled all the way through the stainless handle and brass rod.

 

shifter1

 

Then I inserted a pin in there and bent the edges round.

shifter2

 

Ta-da! Even if it DOES break (which I don’t think it will), its a matter of seconds to swap out the pins, since I’m going to tape a spare one to the pedestal. This gives me a lot more confidence when I am docking, which is important since DOCKING IS TERRIFYING

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