Like many boat owners, I often fit new bits to my boat.

Some of them come with templates that make drilling holes more precise.

The alternative is careful measurement of the item and translating it onto the boat – which for some reason always seems to be a little bit out or not quite parallel.

Among other things I decided to fit a cleat in the bow, next to the anchor winch, but of course it came with no template or measurements.

I thought about drawing a drilling template, but then I had an idea – use the scanner.

Scanned image of the cleat base. Photos: Gilbert Park

I scanned the base of the cleat in black and white at 220ppi as a PDF, carefully placing it on the printer scanner so as not to scratch the glass, and lining it up squarely with a small box and a coaster.

Then, making sure the scan was set to 100%, I imported the scan into my word processing package and carefully added lines as crosshairs for the hole centres.

It’s much more accurate than I can measure on the boat – but before drilling any holes, check the template against the item, just in case you missed a setting in one of the menus.

The first time I printed off the image it was 5cm too long!

Cleat squared up on the scanner bed. Photos: Gilbert Park

Once I had the right size, I cut out the drilling template ready to tape it to the foredeck and drill the holes.

Job done!

Want to read more articles about making an accurate drilling template?

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