Whip Centerboard removal?

Thanks for the help identifying our MFG Whip.
Now for the first of my many questions, what is the best way to remove the centerboard from the boat?

Mine was already out when I got it. I've got the opposite situation, how does it go back in? Here are some pics of it out. What does it look like in the boat?

cas

[www.sailmfg.com]
[www.sailmfg.com]

Good new I got mine out with out a hitch.
1. Roll boat on side
2. Remove retainer strip surrounding centerboard well on bottom of boat.
3. Remove 4 screws for centerboard retainer bracket.
4. Remove centerboard from boat.
Hope attached photos help.
Thanks
[www.sailmfg.com]
[www.sailmfg.com]
[www.sailmfg.com]
[www.sailmfg.com]

Thanks for the pictures. That helps me a lot. The boat is sitting on a trailer with bottom rollers. I didn't know if the centerboard would protrude from the hull when up and interfere with the rollers. Your pic suggests that the entire board is enclosed when up. That is good for trailer usage but not good for mast raising (which I will discuss in other thread).

I think that I have discovered that my "center board" has been converted to a dagger board. See the picture of the pivot bolt. First, it is a bolt, not a pin. From looking at the retaining brackets installed on the boat, it appears a much smaller pin used to be fitted on the board. From what I can figure out from the newer bolt arrangement is that the entire assembly is now meant to be slide in from the top (backwards) like a dagger board.

cas

[www.sailmfg.com]

That looks nothing like what we have, our hardware is out at the machine shop. When we get it all back I will post more detailed photo of our centerboard.

My plan was to turn the "daggerboard" back into a centerboard on my Whip. I tried for a week with no luck on trying to find a local source to fashion a bronze centerboard pin. I finally had to order a $3.00 piece + $15.00 shipping and handling (ouch!). It's about a foot long piece of silicon bronze and I will cut the length I need using a dremel cutting disk.

I removed the metal strips that hold the rubber gasket in place and a small but significant percentage of the screws were either loose, rusted, or had over sized screws forced into the holes. I don't know if the rubber gasket is original, but it looks like a flat piece of thick tire inner tube with a slot cut down the middle. If I was going to fashion a replacement, I would probably go to a junk yard and look for inner tubes to salvage. However, since I live within a reasonable driving distance to Annapolis, MD, I plan to drive up and check out this material as a replacement [www.apsltd.com].

I decided to drill out all the screw holes and fill with thickened West System epoxy and replace all the screws with stainless. While doing a little scraping around the screw holes, large chunks of "stuff" starting come loose. It looks like some sort of filler (looks like auto body filler) was used between the metal strips and the fiberglass. Well I can't leave that be, can I? So an hour or two later with a dremel sanding drum, I somehow found myself sanding down to fiberglass along the entire length of centerboard slot. This was coated with 2 layers of epoxy resin. I plan to bed the new hardware/gasket with thickened epoxy.

I wish I had known about the resin soaked foam method for screw holes. I drilled the screw holes and then used a dremel with abrasive point to bevel the holes. Used syringes to squirt in resin. Then used syringes to fill with thickened epoxy. The screw holes holding the centerboard brackets were cracked through. I had to do quite a bit of sanding of the bracket area to get to clean glass. So a lot of thickened epoxy was used in that area. I finished smoothing and shaping one side so that the bracket will go back in place where it is supposed to. I need to do the smooth and shape the other side still.

The thickness of the brackets to hold the pin in place was worrying me. It did not seem thick enough. Cutting my bronze pin to size would seem to be very critical to get just the right length. Some "bumps" in the center well wall in the area of the brackets were also puzzling to me. Here is what I think I've worked out. I think the bumps provide a space between the fiberglass wall and the bracket to allow a bit of pin to protrude between the bracket and fiberglass. I don't know if this is true or not, but I plan to install stainless steel washers that will sit between the fiberglass wall and the bracket wall. I'm guessing the original brackets are stainless. This will make cutting the pin length to be not quite so critical.

In the other Whip thread, I showed some pictures of the interior taken through the open hatches. There were two pieces of wood used to support the deck. I was questioning if that was original. My guess is that it is not. With the boat turned over, I can see two patched areas where the bottom of the supports must have cracked through the fiberglass. The patched area was poorly faired and the entire bottom is painted. That will be a repair for another day. After I get the centerboard installed, I plan to put her in the water for some cooler early fall sailing. The long term goal is to remove the deck and recondition the hull and deck from inside. The hull stiffeners that I can see on the Whip are hollow half circles of fiber glass cloth. I don't see that any core material was used.

cas



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/04/2011 11:49PM by cas.

If you chose to do the foam repair on a hole, you will have to experiment with different density foams. I only redrilled holes in the foam on the mast socket, but not the heeling straps. I relocated the mounting for these.

Check out this link......
[www.westsystem.com]

It has some downloadable files for some very good information. I actually had them send me copies of them, but I'm not sure they still do that. You'd have to look around the website.

Joe
Sidewinder #327