Lessons Learned with Stuck Centerboard

[Eric]

I thought I would share my recent experience with a stuck centerboard on my ODay23.After reading up on the archives, I decided to try poking a metal rod from the cockpit step, down the plastic tube, to try to release the centerboard. I had no luck, and went home, deciding to haul the boat out the next morning. In the morning, I found about a foot of water in the cabin!! The water that came in rose to the waterline level of the topsides!! I quickly took the boat to the marina, hauled it out, bilged it, and found that I had punctured a 4-inch piece of rubber hose, connecting the plastic tube to the fiberglass tube, which goes down to the centerboard. These two tubes are not aligned....the hose connecting them is in an "S" fashion, so the metal rod could not make the "S" turn to reach the c-board. Kudos to the Viking for helping me find the problem, replace the hose, and finally get my centerboard unstuck. It turned out that I had mud, pebbles, and other junk from the bottom lodged in the c-board fitting. I now make sure that I "bounce" the centerboard around while in deep water, to clean it, before retracting it. I also do not retract it all the way. I am planning on replacing the metal cable to the c-board in the fall, since it has some small kinks in it. Oh yea....last thing I did was to move my mooring out to a deeper spot.So far, so good!!

 

[John Thomson]

It was a Disaster Waiting to Happen!

After reading recent forum articles concerning stuck centerboards, I was wondering about the wisdom of using a steel rod to unstick the center board. Eric's experience justifies my apprehension. The reason for my concern is that I have done alot of work both on the centerboard and trunk from below and in the bilge to repair the connections to the cockpit above from the bilge. Because of the design for these connections I would not recommend sticking anything down through the cockpit. Most likely, the connects are not straight, and you could poke a hole in the hose or chip away at the fibreglass in the hose and bilge. The bottom line for all Oday 23 owners, check out your bilge and cockpit connections! If not, you could have a disaster waiting to happen!Let me tell you of my experience w/ the connections from the bilge to the cockpit. Several years ago, I notice a small leak at the tube joint in the bilge. I had it repaired, but began to be concerned about the design. A couple of years ago, I remove the hose connecting the bilge and cockpit tubes. To my horror, I noticed that the tube connection from the bilge had been nearly worn thru by the constant back and forth raising and lowering of the wire portion of the line connecting the centerboard to the cockpit. The reason, its not a straight connection! Not only that, because the configuration must go around the step in the cabin liner, the factory trimmed the sides of the tube coming up from the bilge! In all, a boat that probably would have sunk within a season or two.The repair involved removing the tube connection a the bilge, re-alligning it and glassing it in (multiple layers of glass cloth and epoxy), and re-installing a new hose (metal reinforced). This involved cutting away a portion of the step area and replacing it with a wood cover. I also replaced the wire and rope connection. I doubled up on the hose clamps and use the type that will not cut into the hose.