Fitting the Keel Box

Friday evening was spent re-levelling the boat (pre-going to the pub!) just to make sure that the boat hadn't strayed off the perpendicular and horizontal. Sure enough, what wih the workshop being a shared space and all our leaping in and out of the boat she had moved a little. We checked the waterlines marked on the bulkheads using as our level a clear plastic tube filled with water. The height the water is at one end is always the same height at the other and with two of you it is very easy to check all round the boat, not to mention cheaper that a laser level. Before long we were happy that the boat was level and we could head to the pub knowing that the keel could be fitted quickly in the morning.

The keel box went in a just a little more than a push fit so we had some wiggle freedom required to align the keel. You can probably also see the small bit of sail batten sticking up on the leading edge, this was to replace the material we took away when cutting the keelbox from the keel.


With the boat nice and level we then put in the keel and made sure that she was vertical and with no twist. We effectively ignored the keel box.


Once the keel was properly aligned we u-pol'ed the keel to the floor of the workshop! Not going anywhere now! I am sure there are better ways to to this, but we do love U-Pol!

The other thing we did before glassing in with our usual fillets and 100mm 450 +-90 was to add a little more support whilst we worked within the boat, especially now we had a hole in the bottom and the keel was perfectly aligned. Nothing complicated, just a few planks to support the bottom of the hull.

And then we glassed her in. Note that after we had filleted the keel box with a micro-fibre resin mix, but before doing the taping we added some overlapping patches of some more 450 +-90 on the hull at both the leading and trailing edges of the keel box to take the load of the keel into the hull in case of grounding etc. You can see the extent of the patching by looking at the peel-ply on the hull in the picture below. We have 3-layers; 100x100mm, 250x250mm and finally the last layer of 400x 400mm.

Next we will add the logitudinal on top of the patching, extending from the keel box to the bulkheads just fwd and aft.

Even Keel

Time to cut a hole. The following picture sequence should explain all!

We have cut the hole slightly large than the keel box so we can have room to align when the time comes. The keel box has its 2 lots of 450 +- 90 lapped on the front to replace the bit we cut down the leading edge (see last blog). Pictures of that during the next post.

"Fein" saw to cut the bulkhead and the hole for the foil.

A Hole! We need to cut out the aft block but will do that once the keel box taping has cured

She fits!

The happy father with the keel.

Extra Frames

OK, back on it hoping to get everything under the deck sorted (about time!) this week - what with a bank holiday coming along too, surely this is achievable! Above is a piccie of the keel "box". We just wrapped it around the foil (which had packaging tape on) with an acetal block to take the trailing edge. The block also helps us spread the load into the hull/deck/glass when we go aground - after all this is going to be raced in the Solent! We then cut along the leading edge so we could easily release the glass from the keel. We will replace in way of the cut as well as adding a little spacer so the keel slides easily. You could easily make a ply-box instead, but we had the glass and is just as straight forward.



Hopefully you can see the extra frames I have added today in the picture above (2nd and 4th one back in the picture). Basically mid-panel ring frames in the slamming areas. It may be argued either way whether one needs them or not, but I have decided that the extra stiffness for a small weight penalty is probably worth it. Back down again tomorrow to get working on the keel.

Oh so quiet.....

Apologies to all for the deafening silence:

Holiday, Cowes Week, Commodore Cup, New born baby, Sail lofts and design studios (not to mention all the other stuff) have intervened. However I seem to have cleared the decks so while Gerry is tending to his new project (baby), I thought I might spend some mornings down at the yard as I did this morning.

And a question to all... Anyone out there who wants to start building now, with the time resources to get a boat up and running (i.e. quicker than us!!)? Get in touch. We can talk about helping you with your project; at the moment all I get is guilt that we are not sailing yet, as well as an outbox full of excuses!! We will still continue our build and identify any changes that we think might be needed but as you can tell - it is not always good asking a busy man to to a job!

Heading back down to the yard so expect some more pictures later today.