Trailer, steering oar and other improvements

This winter I've made a few changes to make life easier. The first is a trailer so I don't have to bolt the hull and ama together every time I want to sail. This was rescued from the scrap pile at the sailing club, fitted with new wheel bearings and more proa friendly boat supports (bits of wood and old carpet).

Here it is in 'traveling mode', with everything lashed to the trailer

and here it is in 'storage mode' with everything piled on top. The plastic pipe of the safety ama goes right at the top and supports the cover, which is sown from a plastic tarp. I'm not sure that a large plastic tarp was the best project to learn how to use a sewing machine, as it's slippery when you want it to stay in place, but stiff and heavy when you want to it to feed through the machine - but I've now got a cover that fits (but forgot to take a photo)
Here you can see the giant steering oar I made. It's a bit crude, because I wasn't sure how large it needed to be or what shape to make it.

Here I am, enjoying the English summer weather (rain and almost no wind). I'm grinning because the steering oar and it's support is (as my daughter says) 'super effective'. We can now tack and gybe when we want, and sail where we want to. It's also powerful enough to keep control if you've got four children aboard, all paddling on the same side. The oar support (does it have a name?) is lashed on here, as I wasn't sure if I'd need to adjust it's position.

Also, I've made a small seat to bridge the gap to the plank, and it's great, allowing me to move in and out easily, thus proving that I should have done what it said in the plans in the first place!

Another small improvement is that I removed the captive nuts from the ama and welded the bolts to a square of stainless steel. For some reason captive bolts seem to work much better as I can spin the nuts on by hand, and use an electric screwdriver to tighten them up. I've also made some rubber washers (from an old inner tube) to seal the holes. Now I can put the ama together solidly in a few minutes, rather than struggling for half an hour and sailing with half the bolts a bit loose. Hopefully I won't have to take it apart all summer but it's great to have a connection I can trust.