I just got back from the Texas 200. Officially it ends tomorrow. I got back yesterday. Had a great time and the boat did great except for the centerboard.
The centerboard would go down about a third of the way and stop. I would pull on the pendant and it makes a squishy air sound that comes out of the thimble in the cockpit. It would smoothly go up and down to that third way point repeatedly. All this was done going directly downwind to keep the side loads on the board to a minimum. Usually after a few hours I would look down and see the pendent knot all the way against the thimble indicating the board had gone all the way down. It does not make any sense that with the action of the board as smooth at it feels stops. The first day I did have crew and had them climb into the cabin and take off the inspection port and attempt to push the board down but the was far enough down the trunk that you could not get a finger on it.
With the air sound that were being made when pulling the board up and down with the pendant I thought that maybe air was locking the board but by taking off the inspection cover it seemed to me it would cause the board to drop... this did not help the problem.
It seems to me someone doing a modification by drilling a hole through the cockpit into the centerboard trunk where they could insert a pin to push the board down if it picked up any debris or named for whatever reason. The hole could have some sort of removable plug.
Any Ideas?
The centerboard problems made me hesitant to continue to the end of the 200. I had fought 25 knot winds, 3 foot waves, and pretty of sun and heat. I hated to drop out with only a couple of days left. Turns out the conditions today and tomorrow have been perfect. The Pocketship Candy-o was one of 22 of 50+ boats to make it to camp 3. I bailed out day four.