This was definitely going to be a two-person job and in fact, we don't believe it could be accomplished by one person, even with unlimited time. As it was, it took us four hours.
We began by taping the three cables together, slightly staggered, and marked them so we'd know which one went where. We had previously decided not to change the port transmission cable since it has always operated very smoothly from both the lower helm and the bridge. We taped the three cables to the pilot (clothes) line that we dragged in when we pulled out the old cables.
Frances worked inside the cabin and tugged gently on the line as Bill pushed on the cables at the same time from over the starboard engine. That worked until the ends of the cables snagged on a partition under the salon floor. Luckily, there's there an access plate that can be removed to get to that area, and so down we went.
Boating keeps ya young, doesn't it?
We were able to free the cables where they had snagged some wiring and were able to get them under the lower helm and then up behind it, were we ran into another snag with just two feet or so to go. Frances attacked from above behind the helm while Bill pushed and pulled the cables from below.
Eventually, we got the cables up, cut the tape off. and routed each one to its respective control.
The throttle and transmission controls always look a little cheap to us with plastic rather than metal covers but the control mechanisms under those cover are actually nice quality. Here's the starboard side finally connected.
We connected the port side cables and called it quits because it was starting to get dark. Tomorrow, we'll connect the new cables to the starboard transmission and the the carbs on both engines. If we have time after that, we may just disconnect the bridge control cables and pull them out. This isn't going to be as easy as the lower helm was and we need to think about whether we should try to pull the new bridge cables up from the engine space or down from the fly bridge.
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