by JonLee on Tue Apr 15, 2014 11:24 am
Just a quick update. I made an attempt to fix my centerboard over the weekend (I'll get some photos up on my blog in a couple of days). I dropped the boat into the water, pulled out all the ballast, secured a line to the masthead and hauled her over onto her side. I then waded into the water and set to work. Between prying with a screwdriver and applying excessive force, I managed to get the board ALL the way down. The was a little bit of seaweed and the like on the board and in the runk, but nothing major. I cleaned it as best I could. I then tried running the board back in. Still very, very jammed. Well, that was enough for one day.
In my mind, I've eliminated lodged debris as a cause for my centerboard woes. So, it's likely that there was some water intrusion that caused some swelling. Don't know whether it's on the board side of the hull side, though I'm leaning toward the latter. If it was the board, I would have expected that spending a 5 months out of the water would have dried it out a little. On the other hand, the bottom of the centerboard trunk sits in direct contact with the keel trough on the trailer. Despite the cover on the boat, I can easily see the carpeting on the keel through being continually damp throughout a rainy Pacific Northwest winter, and (assuming the not-unlikely scenario that the epoxy got sanded through somewhere around the centerboard trunk opening) water wicking up and into the sides of the centerboard trunk.
Options? I'm thinking about building a new, thinner centerboard, maybe from aluminium. My concern is that if it's the trunk that's swelling, then there is no reason to believe it won't swell more and eventually jam the degauged board too. So, I'd also have to figure out a way to ensure that there would be no more water intrusion. Looks like I have some thinking to do.