Drying legs - practical in fin keeler ?

[vyv_cox]

Vyv... do you legs have a kind of protective varnish coating on the Aluminium. Mine do. Do you know what that would be?

I don't think so, the tubing is anodized. The cast parts, feet, top, etc are painted with what looks very like Hammerite.

 

[Praxinoscope]

Years ago the Yacht Leg Co did use a lacquer on their aluminium legs, but they had to stop using it as it was discontinued as it was thought to be environmentally unfriendly.
In the days when I had the Invicta 26 which I kept in a drying harbour on Yacht Legs for some 20 odd years I did coat the legs in ‘Incralac’ a couple of times but it was never as good as the stuff the YL Co used.

 

[vyv_cox]

This is how mine look. I cannot see any lacquer.

 

[vyv_cox]

Just looked at them and there is a hint of yellow that might be lacquer but it is not at all obvious.

 

[ghostlymoron]

That's exactly what happened to my friend.

Many years ago, we dried out in Ilfracombe. Alongside us was a classic wooden boat with nice lines, a long keel and an open low freeboard cockpit. As the tide dropped, the crew rigged legs. I commented to SWMBO that they looked new but also like soft wood.

Ilfracombe (then) had a very thin coating of mud on hard sand. Watching with horror, as weight came on leg, it could be seen to bend and eventually, with the most horrendous cacophony of creaking and cracking, the boat rolled over onto the leg and the mast ended up horizontal.

A surveyor was summoned and fortunately found no serious damage.

The harbour rallied round sourcing everything with buoyancy and clustered it around the cockpit. Fortunately, to everyones relief she did right herself.

Telling that story now several decades later, still causes the hairs on the back of my neck to become erect.:ambivalence:

 

[oldmanofthehills]

That's exactly what happened to my friend.

Tell us more.

Obviously badly constructed items fail. I was thinking of using some stout hardwood legs I have in my yard until a member of this forum agreed to sell me his more suitable nice metal ones, but I would never use soft or thin timber and expect a good outcome. I had never even heard of leg failure before however, and though I am aware that having one leg on soft mud and one on harder ground can cause issues that's no worse than the same situation with a bilge keeler

 

[Kelpie]

The Yachtlegs company claimed that no yacht had ever fallen over when using their legs.

 

[vyv_cox]

The Yachtlegs company claimed that no yacht had ever fallen over when using their legs.

Yes, that's what they told me. I had a 'near miss' when the grub screw holding the adjuster wheel to the top tube assembly came unscrewed. At the time we were drying every tide for a week against the wall in Douglas IOM before the lock gates were installed. The leg placed on the outside fell down, held upright by the lead screw, which bent as the boat's weight came on it, although the boat did not fall. I managed to straighten the lead screw enough for the remainder of our time there and YL Co. replaced it FOC. The grub screw should have been Loctited in on manufacture but had not been, hence it unscrewed. Good company to deal with.

 

[ghostlymoron]

The Yachtlegs company claimed that no yacht had ever fallen over when using their legs.

That statement is untrue. See my earlier post about the Fisher 25.
It is a worse situation than a bilge keeler which can only sink the depth of the keel and will bob up again when the tide returns.

 

[vyv_cox]

That statement is untrue. See my earlier post about the Fisher 25.
It is a worse situation than a bilge keeler which can only sink the depth of the keel and will bob up again when the tide returns.

You didn't actually say they were Yacht Legs. The feet on YL are quite large and it would be unusual for them to sink further than the keel.

 

[oldmanofthehills]

That statement is untrue. See my earlier post about the Fisher 25.
It is a worse situation than a bilge keeler which can only sink the depth of the keel and will bob up again when the tide returns.

A long keeler like mine can also only sink to the depth of the keel similarly and incidentally I have spent a few nights on my ear as it were drying out in some of the Bristol Channel uneven mud spots in our bilge keeler. Failure to use equipment properly in a critical situation is not a defect in the equipment or concept.

Are you sure the Fisher 25 that fell over was using YachtLeg Company legs? Surely if that was the case they would have at least grumbled to YL Company about the vulnerability and they would not clearly claim that their legs never resulted in such failure?

Im an engineer, I am suspicious by training.

 

[ghostlymoron]

I'm pretty sure they were yacht legs with square feet on the ends. The boat was at Shell island and the boat owner was known as 'Zoomer'.

You didn't actually say they were Yacht Legs. The feet on YL are quite large and it would be unusual for them to sink further than the keel.

 

[ghostlymoron]

I'm also a chartered engineer and rely on evidence. The Fisher 25 immediately moved from a drying mooring to a deep water one at Porth Madog because of the incident.

A long keeler like mine can also only sink to the depth of the keel similarly and incidentally I have spent a few nights on my ear as it were drying out in some of the Bristol Channel uneven mud spots in our bilge keeler. Failure to use equipment properly in a critical situation is not a defect in the equipment or concept.

Are you sure the Fisher 25 that fell over was using YachtLeg Company legs? Surely if that was the case they would have at least grumbled to YL Company about the vulnerability and they would not clearly claim that their legs never resulted in such failure?

Im an engineer, I am suspicious by training.