Don’t Monkey With The Plate

Plate, what plate?

We call the piece of plastic that has the hatch opening in it the deck PLATE. Because it is secured by 4 screws, most people think you are supposed to take off the plate to get at, or remove, things inside. Wrong!

The design of the deck plate is one of those ingenious designs of Jon Elmaleh, the product engineer that put our boat together. It really is a piece of work.

The cockpit

When you open the hatch and look inside, most think they are looking at the inside of the boat. Wrong again. You are actually looking at a molded part of the deck, a cockpit, so to speak. The fact is, there is no where you can see the inside of the boat unless you peak into that little tiny hole in the transom. So while other model sailors are putting up with water that gets into their boats sloshing through their electronics, you actually enjoy a most advanced design.

The seal

Since there are NO holes in the cockpit floor or walls, no water can enter from inside the boat. The only way water can get in is through the deck plate. This plate is sealed on with a compound that you should never need replacement or maintenance (unless you have a boat with a clear compound – silicon). As you will note looking around this plate, there are numerous places water could leak into the plate, screws, antenna mount, switch cover, servo holes, etc. If any water drips into you cockpit, read Soggy Bottom Blues.

How do I get the servos out?

Well, I can tell you haven’t read the article on Baby Black Blocks. There you will see pictures of how the servos are installed – and just how smart an installation this is. The bottom line is that if you ever need to get the servos out, you have one screw, used to attach the deck horn/drum to the servo drive shaft, to undo. Then pull out the Baby Black Block, and plunk, out it comes.

The other stuff

The switch mount screws are on deck and easy to get too. Just a few seconds and out falls the deck switch. And, of course, the only other things in the cockpit are the receiver and the battery pack – both are mounted with hook and latch material.

So Don’t Monkey With The Plate unless you have a leaky seal, you have no reason to ever remove it from the boat.

This article was written by Steve Lang of SailRC.com.