Swing keel issues

May 5, 2014
44
Oday Daysailer II Eugene, OR
We are interested in getting a larger boat to augment our Day Sailor. We are intrigued by keel/centerboard boats like the 222 and 23 (and similar boats by Hunter, Clark, Precision, etc.) because our local lake has some extensive shallows and we occasionally pull out to trailer to other bodies of water. But I hear some horror stories about the centerboards jamming, cables breaking, etc. I think of various centerboard issues we've had with the Day Sailer, all of which are solved by my hoisting or muscling the boat around on the trailer. (In fact, the board is out now awaiting new cables.) One of the issues anti-swing-keelers have raised is that inspecting and maintaining the CB on a big boat is a major undertaking, involving hoists and/or divers. Can anyone advise on their experience with keel-centerboarders in terms of maintenance and sailing?
 
Nov 8, 2010
11,386
Beneteau First 36.7 & 260 Minneapolis MN & Bayfield WI
Any engineer will tell you that adding complexity to a system will decrease reliability. That means that swing keels will be inherently less reliable (all else being equal) than fixed keels.

That being said, maintenance and age play the biggest factors in swing keel reliability, followed by initial design. Most swing keel boats you will run across are 20-30 years old, and many of the parts in the mechanism are designed to wear. That means replacement at some time.

The other part is the initial design, and how long the manufacture expected the boat to be in service. Some of the early designs were a bit sketchy.

So the answer is 'you really have to look at each case. Personally I'm a fan of a well designed and maintained swing keel; I own one now which is pretty good. I've also been on some I've not thought highly of at all, and some that were simply amazing (Pogo 12.50).

From a sailing perspective, a good keel system will have a weighted keel (not a centerboard) that has an engineered NACA profile for good lift. The mechanism should be well engineered and strong... the cheap ones rely on rope and then cable, the good ones on mechanical or hydraulics to lift. Due to their shape, a good lifting keel will sail better (or at least as well) as its fixed keel sister. And you know all the other advantages.
 
May 31, 2004
858
Catalina 28 Branford
First, let's get our terminology straight: the Odays (22, 222, 23, 25) have a centerboard, not a swing keel. The centerboard is a mostly unweighted fin that retracts into the fixed stub keel. The ballast for the boat is in the keel, not the centerboard. By contrast, a Catalina 22 or 25 has a swing keel. Like the Odays, the underwater fin on the Catalina swings on a pivot; unlike the Odays, the ballast for the Catalina is actually in that swinging fin. This makes a big difference; the it puts more of the ballast for the Catalina lower than the Oday (always a desireable characteristic for a sailboat), but also then requires a more complex mechanism (not so desireable) to enable the sailor to raise and lower the swing keel.

I prefer the Oday set up: you can control the centerboard by just pulling on a line in the cockpit. No cranks, blocks or cables necessary. And the ballast is securely encapsulated in the keel. With the Catalina, you have to crank the keel up and down with a ratched winch mechanism. The winch is a pretty robust piece of gear, but they require maintenance, and they can and do fail. Also, you can't tell if your board is up or down unless you crank it all the way up or down. With the Oday, you can tell at glance based on how much line is in the cockpit. And as robust as the Catalina is, I was never totally comfortable with all of the boat's ballast hanging on by that one pivot pin. Don't get me wrong, the Catalina 22 is one of the greatest boats ever built; I just like the Oday 23 better.

As for sailing qualities of centerboard boats, I have to somewhat disagree with Jackdaw. While theoretically he's right that you can design a lifting keel to work as well as a fixed keel, as a practical matter design compromises limit the sailing qualities of centerboard boats, especially smaller day sailers. IMHO, the fixed keel version of a boat will always outsail the centerboard version.
 
Nov 8, 2010
11,386
Beneteau First 36.7 & 260 Minneapolis MN & Bayfield WI
As for sailing qualities of centerboard boats, I have to somewhat disagree with Jackdaw. While theoretically he's right that you can design a lifting keel to work as well as a fixed keel, as a practical matter design compromises limit the sailing qualities of centerboard boats, especially smaller day sailers. IMHO, the fixed keel version of a boat will always outsail the centerboard version.
Mike,

I agree with most of what you said, but here you mistook what I wrote... I said 'well designed swing (or lifting) KEELS perform as well as FIXED keels in many cases'. I stand by that; and know of several great examples where that is true.

Centerboards dropping out of trunks however, are typically no where near as efficient at a fixed keel version.
 
Nov 9, 2012
2,500
Oday 192 Lake Nockamixon
I agree with HukilauMike and Jackdaw's followup post (#4.)

HukilauMike pretty much has it all down accurately regarding the diffo between swing keels and centerboards. Jackdaw is a big racer, and has some great experiences on excellently performing and fast boats. I agree that a well engineered NACA foil high aspect lifting keel will perform as well or better than a fixed fin keel. A lifting keel is not the same as a swing keel. A lifting keel is essentially a ballasted dagger board like on a Sunfish, only big and heavy on a performance boat. The Hobie 20 is an example, or the new Left Coast Dart, (or I guess those Pogos Jackdaw sails in the Mediterranean,) and Seaward boats have a pretty good reputation for lifting keel cruising boats.

Back to the OP's question, I am personally less worried about maintenance on a ballasted fixed keel/centerboard combo than I would be on a cast iron swing keel. On another forum, a user has been trying to figure out swing keel binding on his boat for the past month or two, including a lot of re-engineering the cable-to-swing keel attachment point. Then he found out that his swing keel pivot bolt (which is glassed in to prevent leaking) was actually broken on one side, allowing the keel to retract in an angled position and bind intermittently.

Precision has done a great job of keeping keel/centerboard boats alive for the trailersailer market. I like my O'day, too :D It gives me ballast, reasonable skinny water access, and better pointing than a longer fixed shoal keel boat such at the Com-Pac boats. But I know for sure that my little O'day can't point worth a darn compared to many boats. I definitely keep the centerboard on my O'day in the retracted position unless I'm actively sailing. There's nothing worse than CB knock at anchor or dock, to make you worry about a worn pivot...
 
Jun 2, 2004
1,923
Oday Day Sailer Wareham, MA
As a former co-owner of a retractable-keel boat (CAL 21) and current owner of a centerboard O'DAY DS II, I can speak about both types. I haven't sailed a K/CB boat yet (missed out when our late friend Joe got sick) but I really buy into most if not all of the K/CB plusses that O'DAY used to list and agree with most of what their opinion of swing-keel boats said. I do have to note though... that O'DAY did miss one more disadvantge to their K/CB designs..... minimum draft is greater than with a swing-keel design like they describe (our CAL drew 9" if you retracted the keel completely into the trunk, we never did..so that would add enough to equal the 14" draft of an O'DAY 20 or K/CB 22) Many swing-keel boats do not allow the keel to retract totally and so, like the Catalina 22 (24" Keel up), they draw almost as much keel-up as an O'DAY K/CB with the CB up. So the "saucer on the water" is not true of ALL swing-keels.

Now, I must disagree that a fixed-keel boat will "always outsail" a centerboard boat. Alll things being equal, when sailing off the wind you can raise the board on a centerboard (or K/CB) boat part way and thus reduce drag. Our CAL 21 was pretty quick, but on a broad reach I could easily outsail her in my DS II, downwind It might have been a draw, but even with older sails, a CB or K/CB boat will often beat a keel boat. Would love to see a "race" between a fixed-keel Mariner and a centerboard Mariner, or 2 Rhodes 19s. Might be pretty close between the Keel and centerboard. Although I think most racing R19s are keel models, I think that keel and Cb race in the same class.

My feeling on the swing-keel boats is that for a trailerable boat, they work well. You get the deep fin-keel design (keel should have a way to locked in down-position) and advantage of low-down ballast (but most lose some of that advantage due to the ballast being distributed over the full depth of the keel, so a 5' draft swing-keel may not have the center of gravity all that much further down than a 2.5' draft K/CB), with the advantage that when you return to the ramp and winch up the keel, you have the shallow draft of the centerboard boats. For me, I keep my boat on a mooring all summer, with a low-tide depth of 3-4'. I would thus need to lower the keel each time I went out, lock it down (can't be done underway easily), then reverse the process to return. As I say, I like the concept of the swing-keel boats.... but I could keep a K/CB boat like the O'DAY 192 or Precision 18 on my present mooring..... a swing-keel would need to be much farther out from the shore or kept at the local boatyard ($1500.00/year mooring rent) unless I was willing to crank the keel up/down ever time I go out.
I like the CAL 21, but with her keel locked down, she needed 4'3" to float, so wasn't practical to move to my mooring (we had kept her for 37 years at the local boatyard, but although Dad could afford it...... he wasn't using the boat enough to justify the cost, and I didn't want to have to moor out far enough to keep her in hte cove near our cottage (too many powerboat wakes rolling through would wear the keel pivot area out). So, I kept my DS II and we sold the CAL. Dad sails with me now.

The CAL 21 was not a typical "Swing-Keel", in that I consider her to be the only truly "retractable-Keel" boat in her size range. First, the keel had a 360# lead bulb at the bottom and the fin part was a steel-core fiberglass structure. Once lowered into sailing position the keel was locked down by a bolt through the top of the keel fin (above the pivot) and the winch cable was detached and cranked back onto the winch, the winch could then be removed and stowed below and a sort-of plank (Keel Plug) slid into the keel well/trunk to close off the bottom of the slot. This was doen through a large opening in the cockpit sole and a cover was then fitted over that opening. She was now a "fixed-keel". To haul out the process was reversed. Great for our use (launch in Spring. keep her on a mooring for the Summer, haul in Fall), but not so good for daysailing off the trailer, since the process (contrary to the sales hype) took about an hour each way, maybe more. For us it was great, deep, fin-keel when in the water, shallow draft to sit low on cradle or trailer in the winter ashore. We did need to tow a dinghy to go ashore if we anchored, but I think we saw that as just another excuse for our "delusions of granduer" it put us more in line with those with bigger boats!
 

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May 5, 2014
44
Oday Daysailer II Eugene, OR
Thanks for all the comments to my OP. I think I'm clear on the performance/convenience tradeoffs of K/CB vs FK (swing keel is not really a consideration). I want to focus on the maintenance issue for K/CB boats: Are there particular boats or CB control systems that are particularly good or bad in terms of how long their CB systems hold up (e.g., O'Day 23 vs. O'Day 222 vs. Hunter 22 vs. San Juan 23)? To Precision's credit, they explicitly warn that wet-sailed boats are subject to stainless steel corrosion at the CB pivot, and have detailed repair procedures on their web site. That was my first choice, but they are out of my price range. I suppose because they are relatively new and relatively rare here on the west coast, P21's and P23's go for five figures, whereas the other boats I mentioned are typically under $5000.
 
Jun 2, 2004
1,923
Oday Day Sailer Wareham, MA
The O'DAY Keel/Centerboards all have pivot pins made of a surprisingly durable plastic, held into the keel by fiberglass wedges that our held in place by a pair of stainless-steel plates screwed into the bottom (outside) of the keels. The only K/CB model of O'DAY that really seems to be "troublesome" is the orignal (1971-75) O'DAY 23 with the cast-iron keel and fiberglass CB. The keel tends to rust on hte inside of the keel slot sometimes jamming the CB. I would think that if the CB lot in the keel was given a through cleaning out and then painted with some kind of rust prevention (POR or "Paint over Rust" epoxy coating comes to mind) that the rusting could be kept under control, but I have no first-hand knowledge of this. Those boats did have the CB pendant lead through a straight, vertical pipe in the middle of the cabin, so if the board does jam, it is not hard to access it through that pipe to nudge it loose with a metal rod or wood dowel. The later (1977-85) O'DAY 23 has the keel molded as part of the hull and the ballast is lead inside the keel (same for all years of the 20s, 22s and 222s)

On the rest of the K/CB models (that is, all but the original 23), keeping the CB and inside of the trunk painted with a good antifoulant paint should keep them moving. Like the DS II, just the action of regular use of the CB should prevent jamming due to fouling. Always raise the CB as you enter shallower water, before the CB gets pushed up too far by hitting bottom should go a long way towards preventing the CB pendant fro mjamming between CB and the inside of the CB trunk (keel slot). Keeping the CB raised most of the way while moored will reduce wear on the pivot pin.
I would thnk that all of the O'DAYs (22, 222, 23-2) would be about equal in CB durability, the 222 does have a sheave at the lower end of the CB pendant tube as it enters the CB trunk, not sure if any of the 23s also had that, I understand the 25 had the sheave. That will reduce wear and tear on the CB pendant if threaded correct. One thing to watch, be sure that a previous owner did not use too wide of a shackle to attach hte CB pendant to the CB, as there is only just so much room inside hte CB trunk and too large of a shackle may jam.
All of the O'DAY K/CB models you mention have about 15# or so of lead in hte CB to help it lower easier. I would expect other brands to be about the same, just enough weight to make the board not float, but still easy to raise/lower without a winch.

Not sure if there were other versions of the Hunter 22, but the one I just looked at on eBay has a swing-keel not a K/CB. I seem to recall a shoal-keel version and this swing-keel version. The later H23 was originally a swing-keel then changed to wing-keel, then replaced by the H23.5, a water-ballasted centerboard model (totally different than the H23). There was also the Hunter 20, a smaller version of the H22. There might have been a K/CB version?
 

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Nov 8, 2010
11,386
Beneteau First 36.7 & 260 Minneapolis MN & Bayfield WI
Now, I must disagree that a fixed-keel boat will "always outsail" a centerboard boat. Alll things being equal, when sailing off the wind you can raise the board on a centerboard (or K/CB) boat part way and thus reduce drag. Our CAL 21 was pretty quick, but on a broad reach I could easily outsail her in my DS II, downwind It might have been a draw, but even with older sails, a CB or K/CB boat will often beat a keel boat. Would love to see a "race" between a fixed-keel Mariner and a centerboard Mariner, or 2 Rhodes 19s. Might be pretty close between the Keel and centerboard. Although I think most racing R19s are keel models, I think that keel and Cb race in the same class.
Sunbird,

Nice post.

OK I'll agree that for downwind sailing, if you REMOVE THE BOARD, a CB sailboat will go faster than a fixed keel.... but that's not really what we talking about, and is usually illegal under PHRF racing anyway. But your point is taken! ;^)

As for the difference between swing and lifting keels, I typically think of the old-school keels that get lifted with line or wire as swing keels. Modern designs that either lift vertical (like the J/70) or swing back under hydraulic or mechanical means are lifting keels. Due to the extreme mechanical advantage of their lifting mechanism, these keels typically are full size lead bulb affairs, and have ideal NACA profiles. After a certain size, a vertical lift becomes impractical due to size.

Lifting keels are very popular due to their ability to combine great deep draft performance with shoal water capability. The Pogo 12.50 (40 feet) has a draft of 12 feet yet can be beached. Our First 260 has a draft of 6 feet can can be trailered.

Many of these boat use a Conq-Finot designed keel mechanism. The lift can be a mechanical screw or a hydraulic pump powered by hand or electrical means. There is extra cost and maintenance. But in today's boats it's really the best of both worlds.

 
May 5, 2014
44
Oday Daysailer II Eugene, OR
Thanks. That is very helpful. I had heard elsewhere on the forum to beware of older O'Day iron keels. Seems to have been a big change at O'Day around 1974. My 73 DSII has an SS pivot bolt through the CB trunk (notoriously prone to leaking into the bilge). A 79 DSII we used to own had the captive Delrin pivot you describe.
 
Nov 8, 2010
11,386
Beneteau First 36.7 & 260 Minneapolis MN & Bayfield WI
A friend of mine as a 75 Oday 25 CB model. He posts here and maybe will chime in. His has been a real PITA. The board jams up, and there is no way to push it down. It was cracked and split, and rusting inside. Swollen. He bought a new one from Rudy, and paid to have it installed. Still gets stuck HARD. Thought is now that the TRUNK has water ingress and is swollen. Good times.

Its clear that the bigger you get, the engineering needed to make this work well grows FAST.
 
Jun 2, 2004
1,923
Oday Day Sailer Wareham, MA
Thanks. That is very helpful. I had heard elsewhere on the forum to beware of older O'Day iron keels. Seems to have been a big change at O'Day around 1974. My 73 DSII has an SS pivot bolt through the CB trunk (notoriously prone to leaking into the bilge). A 79 DSII we used to own had the captive Delrin pivot you describe.
The 1971-79 DS II used a stainless-steel bolt through a plastic bushing in hte CB, 1980 and newer models use the captive pin held i nby wedges inserted from below. O'DAY tended to phase in changes, so it is possible that the insert from below setup was phased in before the 1979 model year ended in August of 1979.
The bolt through the CB trunk can be leak-proof, but it may require adding an extra set of rubber gaskets (that is what I did last Spring, installed new gaskets against the side of the trunk, but kept the old ones in place between the new gaskets and the head and nut of the bolt..no more leaks. The pivot bolt was just slightly too long, actually would have been OK if the threads went another 1/4" on the bolt, but I could not tighten enough to compress the old gaskets tight.)

Talbotb: Do you happen to remember what the Hull ID number was for that 1979 DS II that had the newer-style CB pivot pin? I have created an expanded version of the DS II Owners Manual and would like to update my information as to approximately when O'DAY phased in the wedge-supported pins in place of the bushing held in by a thru-bolt. Mine was built in December 1978 as a 1979 model and has the thru-bolt. THANKS!

O'DAY only built one K/CB model with an iron keel, that was the original 23 (1971-74), but there is a story that the 34 was designed to have a lead keel, but the bean-counters insisted on a switc hto cast-iron for the first year or 2, then they finally switched to the proper lead keel.

The Mariner and Rhodes 19 did have cast-iron Centerboards (165#), but I have not heard of too much trouble with those getting stuck, I suspect 165# of deadweight overcomes any tightness? The one improvement that I liike on the new STUART-Built Mariners and R19s is the fiberglass centerboard, no more rusty CBs!

Other cast-iron keel O"DAYs would be the Keel Mariner and Rhodes 19, The 23' TEMPEST, and the Keel Javelin. Most likely the O'DAY-Built YNGLING and INTERNATIONAL TEMPEST both had iron keels as well.

I'm baffled at the report of an O'DAY 25 that had CB trouble due to "rusting inside" the CB, the CBs were all ballasted with lead flashing (Rudy showed me a broken one once) so I can't figure out what would rust.

Jackdaw, my Centerboard DS II won't sail very well if I remove the CB.... I can't think of ANY centerboard boat that would.... no Cb would leave no directional control. Do you mean if the Centerboard is fully retracted into the boat when you say "remove the Centerboard"? I can't beleive that any racing rule would ban adjusting the centerboard, heck that is one of the big reasons to have a CB is to allow adjusting the balance of the boat under sail. On a K/CB boat, if you were to remove the centerboard, you could still sail (sort-of) but you would be a great disadvantage going to windward against another boat that still had the CB in place or against a typical keel boat. Without the CB leeway would be pretty evident.
 

Ward H

.
Nov 7, 2011
3,645
Catalina 30 Mk II Barnegat, NJ
The CB on my 25 gets stuck if pulled up HARD. First I thought it was sticking because it was swollen. Then thought it was sticking due to the trunk being swollen. The yard looked at it last year. They could see a groove where the lifting line enters the top of the trunk. They thought the wider part of the eye splice gets caught in that groove. They say it has plenty of side play and feels like the line is just caught.
This year I marked the line where the CB was down about 4" and changed from a 5/16" line to 1/4" line. No problem until I tried to raise it in a hurry in a shallow area and pulled it up hard and past my mark. I sailed for two months with it stuck in the up position. Didn't miss it that much.

On haul out last Friday they looked again and suggested a shorter and narrower shackle may be worth trying. The long D shackle is wider than needed for the thickness of the board and maybe that is catching at the top of the trunk if the line is pulled up hard. Makes some sense if someone changed out the original shackle at some point.
It also sounds much easier than cutting open the top of the trunk to fix the groove. Especially when Rudy never heard of an issue with a groove being cut into the opening.
 
May 5, 2014
44
Oday Daysailer II Eugene, OR
I was wrong on my DS II year. (It was a 1980. I didn't know how to read HIN's when I owned it, and this is the first time in a decade that I looked at its registration). So it would be fully within the "captive pin" CB cohort: XDY10538M80H. (What does the "H" mean?)

I solved my through-pin CB leaks by cleaning out all the silicone that the PO had gunked into the pivot holes, replacing the rubber seals, and putting rubber O-rings around the shaft of the SS bolt to keep water from seeping along the shaft and out between the SS washer and bolt head.

I'll bet attributing the O'Day 25 problems to the groove is correct. Both my DS II's had wear on through-hull's where O'Day had run steel cable through plastic bushings. I repaired with Marine-Tex and replaced the plastic with SS. I also screwed up my own CB once by doing exactly what is suspected for the 25: I used a shackle on the CB tang instead of just swaging the cable directly to the strap. The shackle bound in the trunk, and I had to relift the boat, drop the board, and do the whole job over.

Because of those experiences, I recognize that CB's are always a potential PITA. I am still leaning toward an O'Day 23, 'tho the only one that has come up on the west coast in the past several months is 500 miles from me. I called Rudi at D&R and the seller to voice my CB concerns, and both said they weren't aware of any problems in general for that vintage 23 or with the specific boat. I am still open to persuasion from full-keel advocates. There are FK small cruisers for much less money much closer to me. I guess it's just hard for me to accept actually staying in the channel between the bouys. Me at the helm of a deep-keel boat is a tow job waiting to happen.
 
Jun 2, 2004
1,923
Oday Day Sailer Wareham, MA
XDY10538M80H D

XDY = O'DAY
10538 = Class# (This was the 10538th Day Sailer built
M80 = 1980 Model Year
H = Month of build, March 1980 in this case
D = Day Sailer (O'DAY had to add an extra character to the 12-digit HIN, there wasn't room for the model designation once the Class# passed 9999.

For comparison: my boat is XDY10201M79E-D
Class # 10201
Built in December of 1978 as a 1979 model

Day Sailers with a class Number of 9999 or lower would have looked more like this: XDYD9999M78G

For boats using the Model Year format, A = August, B = September, C = October, .......... K =June, L = July. Model years ran August to July and for 1980 that would be August 1979 to July 1980.

I actually semi-modified the attachment of the cable to my CB by using a swaged on fork terminal to attach to the tang. The original was a Nicro-press swaged loop over a thimble, through the hole in the tang. If anyone has to replace that lift cable (DS II or DS III only) MAKE SURE TO USE A THIMBLE WHERE THE CABLE ATTACHES TO THE TANG! The first time that I replaced the cable Rudy didn't use the thimble because we had trouble getting it in, BIG MISTAKE! and 3 years later the cable snapped at the tang. I was working in a marine store at the time, had a friend there make me a new cable (Rudy was on vacation that week and I really wanted to fix my boat) That was when I added the swage fork. That has worked well for 9 seasons so far!

See below for a diagram for any DS II owners to see.
 

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May 5, 2014
44
Oday Daysailer II Eugene, OR
I wondered about that thimble. Rudi still doesn't use them (I just got a new set of cables yesterday). That's why I put that shackle on the tang, the one that jammed in the trunk. So that I don't have to go to a machine shop to swage the fork onto the cable, what about just reaming out the tang hole so that a thimble would fit?
 
Jun 2, 2004
1,923
Oday Day Sailer Wareham, MA
I wondered about that thimble. Rudi still doesn't use them (I just got a new set of cables yesterday). That's why I put that shackle on the tang, the one that jammed in the trunk. So that I don't have to go to a machine shop to swage the fork onto the cable, what about just reaming out the tang hole so that a thimble would fit?
I don't know, I'd be concerned about possibly weakening the tang by enlarging the hole. I think the secret is to install the thimble into the tang first, then install the cable. You may need to bend the thimble (open the slot wider) to get it into the tang, then bend it back.

Rudy sends the cable out extra long due to the fact that apparently the cable was not exactly the same length an all boats? Maybe he just doesn't have the measurement? I did give him the length of mine (original, when he made the first replacement for me in 2003).

I just remembered one big reason that I switched to a swaged fork..... It allowed me to make and install the cable without having to remove the tang (cable broke in mid season, would have had to haul boat, remove CB, remove tang from CB, make/buy new cable assembly, then reinstall in boat, relaunch boat. Due to my keeping boat on a mooring 40 miles from home (but a short walk from our cottage), replacing hte cable as originally setup would have meant hauling boat one Saturday, taking everything apart (as well as unstepping mast), bring boat up to cottage, fix cable during week, reinstall next week and relaunch. By modifying the cable, I made the replacement during the week after I broke the old one (boat stayed in water, with CB held up by line tied around and under boat), I pulled boat halfway onto the trailer on our beach (thankfully no neighbors were having a beach party that Saturday Afternoon!), removed the CB from the boat only enough to access the tang, secured new cable to tang with fork terminal, reinstalled CB, Relaunched boat, Took about 1 hour or so.... I didn't keep track of time, but it didn't take too long, that meant I really didn't lose a sailing day (well, except the previous weekend, after cable broke just as I lowered the CB to go sailing!).

If I had been able to reach D&R Marine to get the new cable, I could have just bought a new tang and block as well.... no big problem, as that would have allowed me to chance the cable the same way that I did, but would have changed tang instead of re-using old tang. However, I still might have needed to cut hte cable to length and swage the loop on one end (lucky I have a Nicro-press tool!)

Pictures below are the factory original setup.
 

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Jun 29, 2010
1,287
Beneteau First 235 Lake Minnetonka, MN
Jackdaw, my Centerboard DS II won't sail very well if I remove the CB.... I can't think of ANY centerboard boat that would.... no Cb would leave no directional control. Do you mean if the Centerboard is fully retracted into the boat when you say "remove the Centerboard"? I can't beleive that any racing rule would ban adjusting the centerboard, heck that is one of the big reasons to have a CB is to allow adjusting the balance of the boat under sail. On a K/CB boat, if you were to remove the centerboard, you could still sail (sort-of) but you would be a great disadvantage going to windward against another boat that still had the CB in place or against a typical keel boat. Without the CB leeway would be pretty evident.
The O'Day 25 has a shoal keel that the CB retracts in to. Jackdaw was referring to my boat about the trunk etc.... the CB is stuck, had a diver dive on it... no go. Yes you can remove the centerboard as it provides additional lift when sailing upwind. You can sail upwind without it you just don't point for sh**. The CB on a 25 only weighs 65 pounds so it really does not provide any "weight". You still have directional control, the rudder provides that nicely. There are people who have glassed over their CB trunks or just removed them on the 25.
 

ODayCO

.
Nov 8, 2009
22
Oday 25 Ridgway, CO.
Oday 25 CB replacement

Hi I just hauled and hung my O'Day 25. The centerboard line has worn a groove in the sheath of the pipe where it enters the CB trunk. that needs attention. I am going to drop the centerboard out and replace it. I am having a time of it removing the sheaves below the pivot pin. They are silicone in. Any ideas on getting the sheaves out and the centerboard out of the trunk?
 
May 5, 2014
44
Oday Daysailer II Eugene, OR
Are you sure it's silicone? The Precision keel/centerboard boats use 3M 5200 polyurethane adhesive to attach their CB pivot assemblies inside the trunk. Precision has a procedure on its web site for using solvent to loosen the adhesive if the assembly has to be replaced. West Marine sells solvents for both materials. Googling "3M 5200 solvent" turned up many discussion threads on various boating forums.