1983 o-day 22 swing keel locking pin ?

[bigwhyte]

i just got my o-day 22 and its my first boat so im bran newto sailing .im having a geat time but i was thinking that if i get nocked down would my keel swing up in to the bottom of the boat if there is no pin to lock it in place ? thanks in advance
scott

 

[Shoaldrafter]

terms and wherefores

i just got my o-day 22 and its my first boat so im bran newto sailing .im having a geat time but i was thinking that if i get nocked down would my keel swing up in to the bottom of the boat if there is no pin to lock it in place ? thanks in advance
scott

Scott:

Does your O'Day 22 have a swing keel or swing centerboard????

As to getting turtled and having keel swing up, consider hitting something with current arrangement. Most likely if you hit shoal or rock, centerboard would swing back into its kubby, whereas if you lock it in place, your grounded.

Which event is more likely? Hitting something or getting turtled?

Ed K
26

 

[Joe11688]

i just got my o-day 22 and its my first boat so im bran newto sailing .im having a geat time but i was thinking that if i get nocked down would my keel swing up in to the bottom of the boat if there is no pin to lock it in place ? thanks in advance
scott

Scott,
I really wouldn't worry about the centerboard. An O'Day 22 keel/centerboard isn't going to go over that easy unless you screw up on an extremely puffy day, in which case if it did go over it would probably come right back up. The OD 22s have flotation, so I'm told. If you're new to sailing, you need to learn as much as you can about it either by taking lessons or drawing some books out of your local town library. I did the latter. I also recommend that you take a safe boating course. Then go out and practice with just the Mainsail. Once you get the hang of it, try using the Main and Jib or Genoa. One important thing that I recommend highly if you don't already have one is a Davis Windex at the top of your mast mounted on a 12" extension bracket facing aft for good visibility. Read the directions and set the vanes on the Windex. This gadget will literally teach you how to sail. They tell you in the books to try to judge the wind direction by feeling the breeze on your face and monkeying around with your sail to tweak it up and that's OK and all well and good, but the Windex takes all the guess work out of it. More importantly, it will tell you exactly where the wind is when you're sailing down wind which will help in preventing a dangerous accidental Jibe. Here's a picture of my Windex so that you can get an idea of what I'm talking about. The real key to competent sailing in any kind of weather is basic sailing knowledge, and knowing your boat. The more you do it, the better you're going to be at it. Enjoy your boat.
Joe

 

[Sunbird22358]

If you had a swing-keel boat (the O'DAY 22 is a Keel/Centerboard) then YES, you would want to lock the keel down while sailing, although it would still be unlikely that you would encounter the likelyhood of going over far enough to have the keel retract in a knockdown anyway. O'DAY never built any "Swing-Keel" boats, prefering to build Keel/Centerboard designs that had all of the ballast located in the shallow, stub-keel with an easy to raise/lower centerboard to reduce leeway and help with directional control. O'DAY's designers saw this as an advantage over the swing-keel designs that basically had no directional control once hte keel was retracted into the hull (a true centerboard boat has same problem) great (and true) theory except that one rarely completely retracts the keel on those swing-keel boats. Our family owned a CAL 21 (one of those "swing-keel" boats) for 38 years and always had the keel locked down while sailing. The CAL was a unique design in that she was really a true "Retractable-Keel" since the keel was designed to be locked down after launching and a board filled in the open slot in the bottom of the hull, the winch and cable was then removed and she became a "fin-keel". If trailering, you had to perform this process each time you launched and hten undo it to haul out.... belive me it was worth it! However, we kept our boat in hte water on a mooring all summer..... if we trailer-sailed, I think we would have bought a centerboard MARINER, much easier to just retract a centerboard that isn't locked down.

Anyway, back to your 22. The centerboard contributes very little to stability since it weighs around 30-50# (depends who's figures you read!) just enough to make it negatively buoyant. The real stabilizing force in the 22 is the 700# of lead contained within the keel itself. The centerboard wil lmake the boat sail better into the wind and if you experiment with adjusting the angle of the CB at different points of sail, you will find it is very useful for balancing the steering of the boat. If you sail with just hte mainsail, raise the Cb slightly and you will find you have less "weather-helm" or tendency of the boat to try to turn into the wind as she sails. Lower the CB more and you will reduce "Lee-Helm", the tendency of the bow to turn away from the wind.

 

[Joe11688]

i just got my o-day 22 and its my first boat so im bran newto sailing .im having a geat time but i was thinking that if i get nocked down would my keel swing up in to the bottom of the boat if there is no pin to lock it in place ? thanks in advance
scott

If you were able to lock your centerboard down, the odds are far greater that your centerboard would break in half if it ever hit something real hard than the possibility of capsizing your boat. You want that centerboard to pop up if it hits something, at least I do. I wouldn't worry about tipping it over. Once you really get to know your boat and what it can do, you'll have a pretty good idea of her limitations.
Experience is key.
Joe