I have recently bought an O'Day 25 shoal keel and the keel has dropped very easily but does not come up it is stuck down. Is there a lock somewhere?
Keel is stuck
- Thread starter Marc Paulin
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Hi Mark, Congrats on the purchase of the O'Day 25. They're great boats.
It's possible that the centerboard pendant line came disconnected from the centerboard.
I really don't know how they connected the line to the centerboard on your O'Day 25. The older O'Day keel/centerboard sloops of 1975 had a hand winch mounted on the table stanchion down below with a metal winch cable for raising/lowering the winch.
The later model O'Days have a braid line that come up into the cockpit. Some of these lines have a shackle which connects to the centerboard, some have a braid to wire type of connection with a swadged ball at the end.
The only way to find out what's going on is to swim under the keel and take a look or have it lifted out of the water.
One year I checked my centerboard pendant line shackle and found that the cotter pin was broken. It's a good thing that I caught it in time because the rigging pin would have got lost and I'd have no way to get my centerboard back up after I had the boat in the water.
There is no locking mechanism on these centerboards you don't really want one anyway.
If you're out sailing and you hear your board dragging the bottom you want to tack right out of there into deeper water fast. Also, if your board hits something solid you want it to swing up rather than break your board.
I don't know but it seems that your pendant line has come disconnected at the board but I could be wrong about that.
Whoever came up with this centerboard mechanism was a genious. Everything was mounted into the keel slot at the bottom of the keel.
My pendant line rides through a sheave up inside the keel slot on my boat as does the later O'Day 192, 240, and 26 models. I don't think your boat has the single sheave inside the keel slot. The line or cable on yours goes straight down to the centerboard connection.
Good luck!
Joe
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What happens when you pull on the line?
If it won't budge, or if it comes partway out and sticks then there may be a problem like weeds, mud or other stuff keeping it from moving.
If the pendant has detached from the board, it seems to me you'd be able to pull it all the way (or nearly so) out of the tube.
Either way, this is investigated either by diving or getting boat up in the air on the hard to look at the CB.
If it won't budge, or if it comes partway out and sticks then there may be a problem like weeds, mud or other stuff keeping it from moving.
If the pendant has detached from the board, it seems to me you'd be able to pull it all the way (or nearly so) out of the tube.
Either way, this is investigated either by diving or getting boat up in the air on the hard to look at the CB.
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