centerboard rope
I just replaced the rope for centerboard on my O'Day 26, and you'll probably need to haul yours out of the water to replace it. Mine was already out on blocks when I replaced the pendant. If you can do a lunch, or survey haul, where the boat is hauled out, but remains on the travel lift while the operator goes to lunch, you could work on the boat while it's still in the sling. The operator comes back from lunch and puts the boat back into the water. You have to thread the new line through the fittings up to the cockpit, and while it could be done underwater, it won't be easy. I had to use a piece of stiff wire to pull some strong string up through all the fittings, then attach the string to the new pendant and haul it up that way. That was because my pendant had broken partway through the fittings. I used a bit of plastic tape to attach the string to the new pendant, and pulled it up through the bottom. Since there was an eye splice in the bottom end, the rope had to be pulled form the bottom to the top. On my O26, the centerboard pendant is rove through a block attached by an eyebolt to the top of the centerboard trunk. This block allows the rope to turn so it runs horizontally through some stainless pipe, which then turns back to vertical to come up in the cockpit. I'm not sure if the O222 has the same kind of arrangement, if it doesn't then running a new pendant for the centerboard will be much easier. I tapered the end of the pendant where the string was attached so it would travel through the block and the pipes much more easily. I ended up having to replace the turning block in the keel trunk, plus the shackle attaching the pendant to the centerboard, as all of it was rusted through. In fact, the reason I had to haul the boat in the first place is the eye bolt holding the centerboard turning block had rusted through, and was causing the boat leak. Replacing the eyebolt and block, waaaay up inside the narrow keel trunk was quite a job, too. It required inventing a tool, plus some new cuss words! I have some pictures, and I can upload what I had done to replace the hardware. Ron
