Well the sun is starting to make the snow melt from the deck on the house. So about ready to dig the boat out of the snow and get it moved to where I can work on it, so expect a few questions here in next few weeks. Well I bought this boat last spring it was out of the water. I pulled it the 450 miles to where I sail from and splashed it. So now need to give it good look over as it is a 76 25' ODAY. So need to look at the swing keel and should replace the rope for raising and lowering it, since I have no idea how old it is. So 1st question: How high do I need the boat to do that? 2nd question: What else should I look at? And 3rdly: What should I replace the rope with? Look forward to hear some of the great help available here. Greg
Greg,
The centerboard on my friend's 1986 O'Day 26 is 17" wide and the hole for the pendant line shackle is located about 4" from the bottom of the board on the trailing edge.
I'm not sure of pendant line configuration on the 1976 OD 25. The 1975s have a metal cable on a winch which is located on the table pedestal down in the cabin. I would try to get the bottom of the keel high enough so that you can also take a peek at the plates and wedges.
In a couple of weeks I'll have the bottom of my keel about 18" off the ground, but my boat is small and lighter at 2200 lbs.
Both my 86 OD 222 and my friend's OD 26 have braid pendant lines with a shackle at the end for the attachment to the centerboard.
I would look at the stainless steel plates which are located on the bottom of the front portion of the keel. There should be two of them, one on each side of the keel slot. Also, there should be two wedges under these plates, one on each side, inside the keel slot. There should be four 1/4" Phillips head bolts holding these plates and one wood screw through each plate that goes into the bottom of each wedge. Actually, the wedges are held in place by a regular caulking adhesive like Boat Life Boat Caulk or 3-M adhesive caulking 4000, 4200, or 5200 not to be confused with silicone caulking which doesn't have the sticking qualities of a Polysulfide caulking. So if the wood screws are missing, it's really no big thing as long as all the bolts, wedges, and plates are firmly in place. Each of those wedges support a thick fiber pin in which the centerboard pivots on.
As far as your pendant line goes; it may be a braid line to cable configuration where it is attached to the board. I really don't know.
When I replaced my pendant line, attached a strong string to the end of the old pendant line in the cockpit and pulled the pendant line out, and the string through, from the keel.
All my halyards and control lines have whipped ends, including my centerboard pendant line which I did myself. So what I did was run a large eyed darning needle through the side of the whipping to get the string through. Then I tied a knot and added one wrap of masking tape around it to keep the string centered with the end of the pendant line so that it will go through the pipe without hanging up. It's a fairly simple job. I would get the keel off the ground first and let the board down to see what you have and what you're going to need. There's a guy in Assonet Ma who has all the O'Day parts. His name is Rudy Nickerson and the store name is D&R Marine. (508) 644-3001. Good Luck!
Joe
