12 February 2011

Long overdue change to the centreboard case

I spent the morning, in amongst household jobs, moving the boats back into the shed. I have propped the Blue Peter up on its end at the far end and then rolled Daisy G back in. I'm very feeble. I should be able to just push her in, but there is a 5mm step up onto the concrete and I couldn't do it without swinging her from side to side and getting one wheel up at a time. But then I pushed her straight in.


It is a joy to work in a shed with power. Getting the power drill into the cabin meant I could do jobs in minutes that took hours outside. I have bolted the boarding ladder firmly in place and finally completed the hinging of the cabin table. Freeing a jammed centre board used to be a half hour job, undoing 12 screws and breaking the seal between the table and the centre boards case. Now I have fitted hinges on one side and two over-centre catches on the other. It takes all of five seconds to open the case. I'll need to renew the rubber seal, but that is easy and worth it once a year.

One thing I am planning, now I can get into the centreboard case so easily, is to rig up some sort of hooked wire to support the aft end of the board when towing. At the moment it is held up just by the uphaul. Out of the water that is under tremendous load. If it drops for any reason it is really hard to raise again. It needs to be right up for launching, so an extra support will help.

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