keel mechanism jammed

[mambo]

Hello, one & all.

I am seeking some advice from the collective brains trust. I recently purchased an investigator 563 Sail No. 117.

The boat has an unusual keel mechanism compared to most I see with the S/steel "S" bend conduit coming from the keel casing up the inside of the cabin on the starboard side.

Mine however has a PVC conduit running along the inside of the hull from keel casing to transom where it turns 90deg upward and penetrates through the floor of the cockpit. See the photos attached. An 8mm braided rope runs the full length of it.

The pull cord is fully jammed, even after opening the join from the PVC conduit to the keel casing. FYI there is an adjacent PVC conduit that has a broken s/steel cable coming out of it. FYI the black conduits are Bilge pump wiring & hose.

I've lifted the boat off the trailer enough to have the keel drop about 14cm. it moves up & down freely but with no movement of the pullcord.

I'm trying to avoid having to lift the boat completely off the trailer

Has anyone seen this kind of mechanism before or had a similar problem with a jammed keel mechanism?

All feedback is greatly appreciated.

Cheers
Mambo

[Raya]

Mambo, Welcome to the forum. Your plate lifting arrangement is certainly unusual. It looks like the work of a previous owner rather than an original factory fitout. Jammed centreboards are usually caused by the plate rusting and swelling in the keel so you are lucky that yours moves freely.

The usual setup is to have a short length of stainless cable attached to the plate which is then joined to the lift cord. If you can only see the lift cord, the stainless rope may have become jammed up in the glassed in conduit. My suggestion would be to jack up the boat enough on the trailer until the corner of the drop plate that attaches to the cable clears the keel. With any luck, you should be able to pull the cable downwards and clear the jam.

Attached is a diagram of the keel plate. You will need to lift the boat about 300mm to access the join.

[Peter T]

Hi Mambo. Not sure about your lifting system, I was thinking that usually there is a small "D" shackle holding the stainless wire to the actual centreboard. On mine, if that D shackle happened to get jammed sideways, it would be possible for it to jamb in the centreboard case. To stop mine doing that, I was going to grind about half of the flat section of the pin of the shackle away, but given that you can move your centreboard up and down, that may not be your problem. I would think that your system would have been installed by a previous owner and if it is made out of polly pipe and has right angles in it and if it does have stainless wire to the board, then it might be possible that the wire has cut its way into a groove in the polly at a right angle and this may have caused the wire to bind at that point. Just some thoughts, I may well be way off the mark ?
Other than that, if its a rope of some sort, then the knot that ties on to the board may have got stuck in the end of the tube ? But good luck with it

[Peter T]

I have just had another thought. What type of rudder does your boat have? Is is a one piece fibreglass rudder or has it been fitted with a swing up style rudder?. The cord running in the tube under your cockpit sole could very well be a lifting mechanism to raise and lower your rudder from the cockpit, possibly on the other side to the lifting mechanism for the centreboard. If so, you could be confusing the rudder lift with the centreboard lift? Again, just a thought
If this is the case, you may have a nut or something fallen into the tube near the stern which would then jamb the rope at that point?

[Ozzie]

Mate welcome from me also, it is unfortunate that it has to be on a problem note.

When I have had my centre board down and been able to examine inside the keel case I have found that there is a small stainless steel turning block glassed in into the case where the cable turns in the case. In my boat this was not turning. In fact it looks like it never did turn what it did do however was construct the opening of the tube above into the cable case. I could not poke a solid steel rod down from above to push the keel which why I investigated this in the first place. If your connection from the centreboard has snapped/frayed whatever then this constriction point may be the problem. Unfortunately you may have to look inside the case.

I do examine my case and keel underwater at times. If you launch the boat and the cable is not attached you can still hold the keel up with a rope tied from toe rail to toe rail and also retrieve the boat that way. I’ve done this when my cable attachment point rusted through. With a good waterproof torch you should be able to check the cable condition observe any jamming issues. Many like me have replaced the ss/rope combo with spectra. If you have a GoPro you may be able to mount it to a pole with a light source and not have to bodily try and get under the keel slot underwater. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea. (With salt)

I can understand maybe the rationale of having done this. If the previous owner was a keen racer he may have liked to tweak the board depending on the point of sail. If you were really keen I guess you could have the keel adjustment at the rear of the boat. Are any other controls moved to the stern?

I would add here that I’m a lazy basket and leave it down unless on a very long run down the lake .
Good luck.

[Watto]

What does it look like from underneath?

[Ozzie]

I’ve looked and I think the pics I had are on an old iPad which is now kaputnik. Basically just a raw FG box with a ss turning block glassed in front of a hole ... a very small hole on mine. Which is why I think a broken connection with anything on it would jam.

I think if I were redesigning this small area I would have the opening that comes up with the cb pull further forward above the cb end. You can remove the tube that flexes up to the cleat on the water as the open end is above the water line. It would be great to stick a solid rod down to free a stuck keel by giving it a good thump

[Ozzie]

I did have a pull down cord ( 2mm spectra) at one point to pull the cb down if a bit of growth fouled it but didn’t reattach it last haulout as I rarely used it. In warm weather it’s more fun to go for a dive with a scrapper.

[mambo]

Thanks everyone for your feedback.

I sort of like Ozzie's idea of diving. However, It's almost quicker for me to build a scaffold cradle that to drive to the boat ramp and I dont have to hold my breath whilst working on it. There is a guy about 30 minutes from me who advertises the use of his 2 poster car hoist for $20 an hour. or I even considered hiring ($40/day) or buying ($205) a 2t engine crane. But the scaffold should do for now.

I've attached a photo of the keel down as far as it goes before stopping on the trailer roller. It moves freely and I suspect it would go fully down if unimpeded.

I'll keep you posted on how it goes.

[Peter T]

Looking at your last photo, you might be able to jack the front of your boat up enough on the trailer so that if you removed the pivot pin of the board, you could probably then remove the centreboard and then see what's going on in there ?