Fitting rod holders

[sailrepair]

Here is how I have fitted rod holders to my F-rib.

I fish for common skate, it is a waiting game and I use lever drag reels with the drag set so it just stops the line being taken off the reel by the tide. Move the lever a fraction too far and the reel is sat there with quite a stiff drag. I have had skate snap rod holders off my last boat and ended up reinforcing them with stainless bolts. So rod holders are important for my fishing.

being a new boat I didn't really want to go drilling the transome so I thought of how I could fix the holders securely to the boat. The most secure non permanent attachment to the boat is the engine so I thought I would utalise that.

I also noted that my engine sits about 2" too low for optimum performance so what I have made "kills two birds with one stone".

I bought some 50 x 20 mm aluminium tube for £10 from ebay. I didn't want to go scratching things so I covered it in rubber. What you do is get a old bike intertube. Tie a bit of cord or fishing line to one end and drop the line down through the inner tube so you can then turn it inside out. Inside out the innertube has a nice smooth finish. It is a bit of a fiddle (use talk) to get it over the aluminium but the end result is good.

here is a before and after photo

Then I bolted the base parts for two scotty rod holders to each end.


Obviously the bar was cut to length in the first place


And the finished thing


The bar is never going to go any where and does not compromise the engine mounting. The rods are held in the far corners of the boat leaving maximum room inboard.

[mattswan2512]

Now that is an ingeniouse idea..........

Will have to show AaronB as he will like this set up.

[James]

This is a bl**dy brilliant idea.
I am going to have to measure my outboard now and see if I can get away with that :-)

[Martin]

You sir- are a genius..
I've been looking at all sorts of mounting clamps/ideas, nothing compares close to this..
Would have loved to get that done in time for Oban, but not going to happen I'm afraid..
Oh well, a task for the winter.

Thanks for sharing

[kaman]

Nicely done there sailrepair.
I do a lot of fishing from my Sib.
Here's how I affix my removable rod holders.
I use a couple of pieces of wood.
Covered with duct tape which is evosticked onto the wood.
Screw the rod holder to that.
My Honwave has eyebolts on it I use these to clamp the wood block with rod holder to the transom.
Been using them for 4 years with no issues.
Does the job and cheap as chips.
Done similar with my Seago too.

Cheap as chips as ever.

[sailrepair]

Hi Kaman

I did think of doing something similar but thought that it would stop me folding the Frib fully up as the bow section fold close into the front edge of the transom.

I like your auxiliary engine bracket.

john

[kaman]

Howdy .
The Honwave comes with M10 stainless eyebolt fitted to the transom.
All I do is loosen one bolt and voila the whole bracket is off in a couple of turns.
As the Honwave is on a trailer permanently there's no need to remove them.
My Seago is a roll away so I remove the aux engine mount and rod holder mounts when it is stowed away. In its bag
Only takes a couple of minutes to remove / install.

[James]

Do you have a link where you purchased the rod holders from?

[sailrepair]

Do you have a link where you purchased the rod holders from?

Do you mean my scotty rod holders or Kaman's?

Mine are scotty "powerlock" which you can find on ebay as well as a lot of fishing shops.

[James]

Yours I meant :-). I'll go and see if I can find yours on ebay.