Rudder uphaul and motor mounts

Just puttering along after work tonight.  First thing i did was glue and screw in a 3/4" ply backing plate to where the motor mount is going to attach.  This should give plenty of meat for a little 2hp, especially my little 2-stroke Evinrude.  I ever win the lottery I'll pick up a 4-stroke Honda.

I haven't decided wether to build a mount, buy a fixed mount or use a moving mount.  There seems to be a real lack of mounts for small motors these days.  everything is built for 10hp and up that I can find.  There used to be a lot more variety.  I've got time to keep an eye on the local 2nd hand chandleries though, maybe something appropriate will pop up by the time I need to launch.  

The other thing I got mostly done was rigging for the rudder up haul.  Tiller rides so close to the top of the transom penetration I can't just put fairleads on top.  I set my table saw blade at an angle and cut a groove, the cleaned it up with a chisel and some sand paper.  This would have been a good job for a router table if i had one.

figure out the place for the hole in the rudder and drilled it.  it all works pretty slick.

It still works even if the line falls off the rudder radius to the side, just take a stronger pull.  It has an amazing tendency to keep riding on the curve though.  I did have an issue with the line being pulled sideways out of the groove by yours truly, and it would get stuck to the side of the tiller penetrating the transom.  I rigged a high tech fabrication intensive end of groove fairlead.

I'm going to get a piece of angle made up to replace the washer at the after tiller bolt to act as a fairlead on the aft end.  The the line will really have a tendency to stay in line with the rudder radius.  I'll leave the rest of the slot open outside to act as a rain gutter and hopefully get less water running into the boat in a good rain storm.