St Helena 2 October 2010
(just before we left the keel behind)
Keel Mkll begins.
I'm building this one a little different to last time for obvious reasons--the last one didn't stay in the boat on a rough day there was just too much load on the top plate for the way I had built it.
The old keel had the bulb bolted in from below as well as having carbon wrapped from bulb to blade. I will do this again as I believe it was very strong.
The top plate will be bolted on again but instead of only having 50
mm bolts seated in the top of the blade I have glued in full length threaded rod 12mm diameter. Bulb will be bolted to the bottom and the other end of the threaded rod will be through the top plate. The nuts at the top plate are going to be 50mm and will also ha
ve pins through them to stop them from coming undone and just in case the thread on the rods fail (unlikely, but I am not doing this a third time).
My keel blade, like the last one, is over-kill but not quite as much hardwood this time. The last keel blade had no flex at all and I intend on keeping it that way even if its a bit heavy.
The leading edge has been done --slowly and carefully- with hand plainer and TOTURE BOARD (I still hate that thing) and the result is very nice. The trailing edge will be done at my old work place on a BIG plainer and finished up with the b&^%$y torture board.
