critical swing keel issue

[kevinnem]

I am not one prone to exaggeration, but oh my god am I pi$$ of with this boat.

Friday night I went out and dropped the mast. It was a bit of a pain, but since I have loosened off the back stay, it goes up and down much more easily now. anywya, I noticed one of the spreader is bent, and the screaws are coming out - no doubt stripped.

I get it home, and saterday morning I start pullin gout the keel. - What a pain that is to do , the time is not so long, and mostly it is not that complicated, but working in the low clearance under the trailer was a HUGE pain. I pull the keel and it was COVERED in dried up alge. I clean it off, and get it back in it takes me about 6-7 hours - though I did clean it pretty well, as well as the trunk. The trunk was not as clean, but I still did my best. I also sanded the keal a little bit to smooth it out.

so anyway, after fighting like mad, and almost breaking up whit my girlfriend over the whole ordeal, the keel is back in , and we head down to the lake to watch the firework. we get there, raise the mast . AS we are backing it in to the water the boat patrol comes up "sorry no boats on the water during the fireworks". Kinda a shame that they didn't let anyone know about that GRRRR.

So we go back today toss the boat in the water and teh damn keel isn't coming down. I do in to the freezeing water, but I can't reach it , and going "under" is jsut too cold and hard to do.


So - At the end of the day I have been out "sailing " 4 times, and only got to sail for like 30mins, only by luck that the keel dropped.

I NEED to get this keel fixed, I am convinced itis getting stuck in teh trunk, I think if you look at photos, you can see the "wear points" were there is no alge.

What do I do ? I have 4 ideas right now, and VERY VERY open to others.

1) install a "spring" or other item on the back of he keel or topof the trunk so that it require positive pressure it keep it up there.
2) add weight to the end of the keel - this might not help though, as the physics of the situation might not really change
3) drill a hole in the BACK of the trunk and put a plug in , so that I can stick a broom handle through and push the keel down.
4) pull the keel out and make it narrower. This might not work, as it might not be the widest part that is in fact the part that is causing the frittion.


Please help guys, I am losing my mind and really pset at the situation right now.

[March]

Keel is designed to fill out with water and drop down under its own weight. Now the spring solution, or the added weight, not to mention poking it from above, will not address this issue: it's based on the premise that the keel doesn't function as it is supposed to.
You might want to make sure that nothing is wedged in the trunk, and that the line to the keel is mounted correctly, and the keel can move freely as it's supposed to. You can't completely drop the keel off when the boat is on the trailer, but you should be able to see if the keel moves a little if you slacken the line.
Are the holes open? Does the keel fill out with water? Would it be possible that the holes have been plugged up as you cleaned and sanded it? If the keel doesn't fill out with water, it'll never drop down.
You need to take the keel off again (groan!) and test it separately. Also, you could mount some teflon washers or something to make sure the keel rotates easily around the pin--but I don't think that's the problem. The weight should drag it down even if the pin is sticky--though it shouldn't be

[DaveB]

Whoo, slow down to a Gallup or reef your thoughts.
Learn the ropes and follow advice thru archives on your problems.
Not the boat problem, you just need to know how to rig and sail.(most of your questions can be answered thru archives, do a search for problems).
The Boat is the way it is and many happy Trailer Sailers have found the need for a Mac.
Dave

I am not one prone to exaggeration, but oh my god am I pi$$ of with this boat.

Friday night I went out and dropped the mast. It was a bit of a pain, but since I have loosened off the back stay, it goes up and down much more easily now. anywya, I noticed one of the spreader is bent, and the screaws are coming out - no doubt stripped.

I get it home, and saterday morning I start pullin gout the keel. - What a pain that is to do , the time is not so long, and mostly it is not that complicated, but working in the low clearance under the trailer was a HUGE pain. I pull the keel and it was COVERED in dried up alge. I clean it off, and get it back in it takes me about 6-7 hours - though I did clean it pretty well, as well as the trunk. The trunk was not as clean, but I still did my best. I also sanded the keal a little bit to smooth it out.

so anyway, after fighting like mad, and almost breaking up whit my girlfriend over the whole ordeal, the keel is back in , and we head down to the lake to watch the firework. we get there, raise the mast . AS we are backing it in to the water the boat patrol comes up "sorry no boats on the water during the fireworks". Kinda a shame that they didn't let anyone know about that GRRRR.

So we go back today toss the boat in the water and teh damn keel isn't coming down. I do in to the freezeing water, but I can't reach it , and going "under" is jsut too cold and hard to do.


So - At the end of the day I have been out "sailing " 4 times, and only got to sail for like 30mins, only by luck that the keel dropped.

I NEED to get this keel fixed, I am convinced itis getting stuck in teh trunk, I think if you look at photos, you can see the "wear points" were there is no alge.

What do I do ? I have 4 ideas right now, and VERY VERY open to others.

1) install a "spring" or other item on the back of he keel or topof the trunk so that it require positive pressure it keep it up there.
2) add weight to the end of the keel - this might not help though, as the physics of the situation might not really change
3) drill a hole in the BACK of the trunk and put a plug in , so that I can stick a broom handle through and push the keel down.
4) pull the keel out and make it narrower. This might not work, as it might not be the widest part that is in fact the part that is causing the frittion.


Please help guys, I am losing my mind and really pset at the situation right now.

[Catigale]

It's possible the centreboard has taken on water and swollen ..thus making it jam in the trunk. Let's see those pictures...

[kevinnem]

Here are the photos. (will try to add some ot first post too. Please note, taht some of the photo that look like they are the same, are in fact with the board "flipped over"

I guess it is possible that there is water in board, causing it to swell, I wasn't aware that non-wood stuff was prone to that. I suspect that might be the case at the bottom of the board, so I took a hack saw can cut off a portion of it that looked a bit "fat" .

[Harvey]

I once pulled the keel out and forgot to note what kind of knot kept the keel line in, so I tied a double overhand knot. Put the boat in the water and the keel was reluctant to descend. Frustrating! When home, pulled the keel again and tied a single overhand knot and next time in the water, all was well.

A call to the Mac factory confirmed that the single overhand knot was the proper knot.

[mastreb]

Not to rub salt in a wound, but after reading all the swing keel centerboard maintenance, I'm super happy about having a daggerboard. They have a binary state: Broken, or not. There's nothing to maintain or worry about.

[davgreg]

wow.......thats crazy!

[Bra dor]

My keel used to get stuck the same way as yours and I couldn't understand why until I figured out what happened. I started having trouble with it when I came into a fuel dock then tried to back out and ran the keel aground breaking the top off the keel. ( just a little tip on the top of the keel ) What was happening the keel was moving to far forward without this little tip to stop the forward movement and jamming where the tip was missing. It looks to me that your keel has the same damage as mine had. What I had to was fiberglass the tip back on and now I'm not having any trouble with the keel

[Bra dor]

Oops... having reread your post your having a different problem then I had.My keel would jam when it was all the way down and I couldn't pull it back up

[Catigale]

I would wash off the brown crap with oxalic acid ..I don't think that is holding up your board but it could be...

Check the hanger for smooth up and down operation with your CB line with the CB out.

This is a pretty simple system so the solution isn't far away.

Can you post a pic of the cross-section of your CB so we can gauge any swelling?

[kevinnem]

Just to Clarify, the board, was cleaned quite well, I uses comet/Clorox with bleach, as well as Mr. Clean, and a scrub brush, It took maybe 4 hours cleaning it, and the trunk. However, I couldn't do as good a job on the trunk, because I was under it and chemicals could get in my eyes, so I didn't use them. I feel that the "pond scum" is no longer the issue. It is possible that the board has "swelled" I will have to pull it out to look at that. I might not have time to do this until next weekend. I did suspect this when I looked at the unit. The white "paint" coating is clearly warn off the bottom, but it appears also that the "ware marks" are near the center of the board, at the thickest part. They coincide with the "white spots" that are void of alge on the photos.

The wire appears to run up and down fine, as when it was detached we pulled it up and down a few times - was reasonably easy to do. However, I am not aware of any knot that is in the line, I have wire all the way up to the top of the boat. The wire connects to the rope some 4 feet from the cockpit.

[Catigale]

Kevin...your CB hangar looks low in my judgement - I thought on my it sits up in the CB trunk....is this how it looks or was this during the removal process?

Im not positive about this, just throwing it out there..

[kevinnem]

Good eye!

That is exactly the case; that photo was during the removal, and it was not all the way up. When installed, the holes and bolt line up and counter sink into the corresponding holes in the trunk. I will get some photos of it installed, I had a thought of probing again with knifes, .. this might provide some interesting comments.

KEv.

[bartmac]

Having had both swing and dagger boards..... give me a swing board any time...same as rudders...hit something at least there's a bit of give...I guess it depends also in what sort of waters you sail in.In our case river,bay etc with sandbanks etc it makes life easier.We found our board to go down slow but thats just the way it works....I guess very different to our last boat which had a swing keel with 450kgs of lead in it!!!

Not to rub salt in a wound, but after reading all the swing keel centerboard maintenance, I'm super happy about having a daggerboard. They have a binary state: Broken, or not. There's nothing to maintain or worry about.