ETAP 22 Keel removal

[Inselaffe]

Hello,

I must regrease the keel of my 1981 Etap 22 soon, in a thread about the same, Shaqra was asking for info, I was wondering if you managed to do it and if you can give me some info about it (I tried a PM but not sure if it worked or was read)

Anyone else with info would be great, I have the manual but it all seems too easy...

Thanks

Leigh


<hr width=100% size=1>

 

[scarlett]

If it is anything like the 26 it is tricky. You have to lift the boat off the keel and then lower the boat back onto the keel at the correct angle or it jams. It took a professional company 3 days and a travel lift occupied for most of that time!
It would have been much harder with a crane as you don't have the manipulation ability.

Plan to change the belt and the thrust bearing at the same time.

All other things being equal and, in an ideal world, I would turn the boat upside down and pour hot grease in! Much easier. (joke)

<hr width=100% size=1>

 

[Inselaffe]

Thanks for the reply, but it surprises me! - There is a place in Hamburg that does the removal, greasing and refitting for a 26 for 260 Euros (185 quid), and they are not what I would call a cheap place so it can't take them that long to do it.

For mine it is the same price but I want to get it done at a place closer to my harbour (transport cost toi Hamburg would more than triple the price and time is also short).

I dont think I have a belt in the works, just a threaded rod and a travelling bolt. Not sure what the exact setup is though, but would like to find out.

Leigh

<hr width=100% size=1>

 

[Koeketiene]

UK prices

If you live abroad - don't judge costs by UK prices. Work is nearly always carried out cheaper (and often to a higher standard) elsewhere in Europe.

Example: I keep Yanita afloat the whole year. She only comes out once a year for either e pressure spray/annode replacement or anti-fouling. In Gillingham (where we keep her), a lift-out, hold 30 mins, relaunch costs £166 (approx € 245). In Nieuwpoort this same procedure costs € 50 (approx £ 30).

It's the same for almost everything else. So far I have spent about £22,000 on Yanita for a complete refit (apart from the hull and the mast, it's a new boat). The work was carried out by Etap or Etap approved yards (warranty on the work). The cheapest quotes from the UK came to £37,000.

I rest my case.

<hr width=100% size=1>Experience is a good teacher, but she sends in terrific bills.

 

[Inselaffe]

Re: UK prices

Sure,

I know how much my friends back home at Brightlingsea have to pay and all my costs here are much, much, much lower - And I get the impression that home is not expensive at all when I hear about Bradwell or, God forbid, the South Coast... crazy!

Anyway, despite the relative prices they can't spend 3 days holding up a crane in Hamburg for that price and make any money...
But then again as an ETAP handler they no doubt have done enough of them to have the nack by now.

In the handbook it just says, "take out retaining bolt at bottom of keel housing, support keel and lift off boat with crane". I have the impression that latter boats were more complicated, and that it should be quite simple for mine, but then I am often wrong.






<hr width=100% size=1>

 

[Inselaffe]

I managed to find the following instructions from "Hein_Bloed" AKA Bjorn-someone on the German Yacht magazine forums. He said he has taken the keel out of his 1980 ETAP 22 twice so far.

Two points of note: I have no way of knowing if it's correct (but I would guess it is) and I translated it from German (although I think I got it right).

"The keel is laterally supported/guided at the rear edge by two nylon blocks in the keel box.

At the front there is a screw pillar/spindle that is attached at the bottom to the keel with a nylon bushing.

At the top the screw is connected to the crank through a mitre gear under the mast foot.

Taking the keel out has the following advantages:
- You can check the safety/retaining bolt: After 10 years ours was almost corroded through by pitting corrosion (if that breaks then the keel can be wound down right out of the boat – not good in the water as it is then lost!)
- You should check the spindle for corrosion and grease it every couple of years or so anyway.
- The upper part of the cast iron keel, which you can’t see because it stays in the keel box, is highly susceptible to corrosion and sometimes needs to be re-protected/painted.

Taking the keel out we have always used the following procedure:
Suspend the boat with a crane and put a box trailer with a pallet on it underneath.
Then put the boat (with the keel wound down) carefully on the box trailer (CAREFULLY!). Then take out the keel-retaining bolt (inside, right at the bottom of the rear of the keel box), and then wind the keel further down.
When the end of the spindle is reached the keel is free to slip out the bottom and sits on the trailer.
Lift the boat off the keel (The keel is still 1m in the hull) and put it on its trailer. The keel weighs around 550kg,
The winding spindle is pulled out from the top through the mast foot.

Reassembly is exactly the opposite procedure; it’s just a bit fiddly.

Important in both directions: a good and patient crane driver and someone to look and give directions."



<hr width=100% size=1>

 

[DaveS]

Do you mean grease the keel itself or just the keel screw? Etap advise that the latter should be greased every other year and that is what I used to do. It was fairly easy - if a bit messy.

With the boat on its trailer undo the flanged ss plate that the hex ended top of the screw pokes through. From memory it's held on by 4 domed nuts. This reveals a thrust washer or two which you lift off, clean and put aside. You then wind the screw anticlockwise as if lowering the keel, but instead the screw winds itself out - all 1.5 metres or so of it! It can then be cleaned, re-greased and screwed back in.

Apologies if I have misunderstood and you actually want to remove the keel itself for inspection of the "never seen" bit at the top or whatever. Other posters have covered this - I would only reinforce the point of making very sure that the 0.5 tonne keel is held securely.

(PS - I've been a viewer of these forums for some time but have just logged on for the first time. Do I get abused now or later?)

<hr width=100% size=1>

 

[Inselaffe]

Thanks Dave,

I think that I reallly need to grease the screw, it is really stiff to wind - i can only manage the 340 turns in three goes with a lie down between each go.
But now I'm thinking that maybe I should also sometime look at the hidden bit of the keel.

But your method sounds really easy if I can't manage to get the keel out this winter and I could go and do this before (I'm worried that if it's that stiff the mechanism must be suffering especially if its got a nylon bush).
Isn't it a bit tricky to get the end back into the attachment to the keel? Or is it easy because the boat is on the trailer and the keel is high up the box? Do you think that I could do the same procedure if I dried out against a wall/posts?

I have private messaged you (no abuse!)

Thanks a lot

Leigh


<hr width=100% size=1>

 

[DaveS]

Getting the screw back in is quite easy since, as you say, the keel is up at the top of the keel box and you aren't trying to fish a long way down. Also, the bottom end of the screw is machined to the root diameter so this acts as a spigot or pilot when locating the female thread. The thread is single start, square profile (for low friction (!)) and picks up very easily. After it's in place turn the the screw slowly anticlockwise and at some point it will suddenly drop down about 6 mm: now turn clockwise and the thread will engage immediately.

I have only done this with the boat on its trailer, sitting level and well supported. Drying out (with the keel up) might be OK but I'd be a bit concerned that if the boat dried with any noticeable heel there might be a tendency for the unsupported keel to move sideways wrt the hull - possibly to the extent of moving too far for the screw to re-engage. This might not be possible - the keel/box clearance might not allow it, but without knowing for certain I would treat it as a risk and take suitable precautions e.g. a crowbar to hand to prise the keel top back nearer centre and/or dry out so that the tidal rise after re-floating will be less than 1m or so.

Incidentally, my keel screw was very stiff too - to the extent that I needed a ratchet handle to move it at all comfortably: the down side being almost 1000 strokes between fully up and fully down. The stiffness was much worse at certain points of the travel, however. On removing the screw the reason was obvious: it was considerably distorted - out of true by more than its own diameter at one point! I reckon that a previous owner had run the keel into something solid, bending the screw. If your stiffness is more constant over the travel it's more likely just a build up of old, hardened grease and crud.

<hr width=100% size=1>

 

[Inselaffe]

Thanks again!

I will wait till the end of the year when we're on the trailer and then grease the screw as you've described, and maybe just check the keel retaining bolt (presumably it's a 'stop' and I can draw it out easily as long as the keel is not right down, especially if on the trailer?)

Sounds like my mechanism isn't that stiff then. It is slightly harder in spots, but this is probably due to fatigue (of me, not the screw!). I think if I had had time to keep up the windsurfing this year and had laid off the beer a bit then it wouldn't be so bad. I guess it's just that you cant expect to raise half a ton by 80cm without a bit of effort.

Whilst your there.....

How much prebend in the mast is advisable?

Currently I can't get enough tension on the caps, I run out of adjustment on the bottle screws just before I can get any pre-bend in the mast. The caps are tight, but not enough to bend the mast. I can use the backstay to bend the top of the mast and tighten up the forestay, but I'd like to have a bit of pre-bend lower down to get the best mainsail shape (currently the main backwinds much earlier than the genoa and appears to be too full to me - although my experience of correct fullness is from windsurfer and cherub rigs...). I don't think it's because the hull is flexing, the keel box acts as a very rigid support for the deck stepped mast, and the caps are slack until almost the end of the adjustment of the bottle screws. I would guess that if the hull was flexing the caps would become tight earlier and then the hull would flex as I tightened them instead of the mast bending.
So I think that my caps have stretched over the years (I suspect that they are around 20yrs old!).
I presume that as a fractional rig a bit of pre-bend is adviseable, but I don't know how much is prescribed for the the etap (my main is from Gaastra).
Before I get new shorter shrouds made up it would be reallly nice to have some idea of how much prebend I need to give a rough idea of how much shorter they should be.


Leigh

<hr width=100% size=1>

 

[DaveS]

Can't help with the prebend question directly - I'm afraid I adopted the more "cruising mentality" approach of setting up the shrouds so that the lee one stayed just taught enough to not move at maximum heel. I do know that I had to take up the bottle screws a couple of turns once or twice through the season, so something was presumably progressively distorting a little - but it always seemed to have returned to its starting position by next spring so I learned to live with it.

You might want to contact Etap for the right answer as to pre-bend - they're usually very helpful. I presume that you have tried flattening the sail in stronger conditions by increasing halyard and outhaul tension? (From memory there isn't an outhaul control line as such, but you can rig a multi-part lanyard from the clew to the boom end.) I also used a Cunningham and found that very effective.

Subject of course to correction by any passing metallurgists, I would not have expected ss shrouds to permanently stretch: racing types set them up to 15 - 20% of breaking load and stay within the elastic region. To be so slack implies that either they were too long from new (which seems unlikely - you would think someone would have noticed), or could their length perhaps have been modified, by inserting toggles or shackles say?

If you are only able to tension the shrouds by one or two turns then I would expect your lee shroud to be quite slack when you're heeled over. If this is the case then you really need to do something about it: your mast will be flexing in ways it isn't meant to and, if pressed hard, could come down.

I would have thought that the practical answer to the "how long" question is to get the new shrouds made up to such a length that you can engage the bottle screws when slack and then take up 3 or 4 turns by hand before wanting more leverage. The remaining screw length should then be sufficient to tension as required (including desired pre-bend). It should be fairly easy to find the "hand tight" point on the existing shrouds and measure the total length of thread (top + bottom) between the female screws of the bottlescrew frame. This dimension less 6 to 8 thread pitches is the oversize. Measure both shrouds (both "hand tight" simultaneously) and take the average. You can then take the old shrouds to your rigger requesting that the new ones be X mm shorter. Specify that you want the old ones back and check the new ones against them before fitting. (I replaced all my rigging 2 years ago - insurance requirement: 10 year max. allowed - and the rigger made up the new cap shrouds too long, but I still had the old ones to prove it and get them re-done free ...)

<hr width=100% size=1>

 

[Inselaffe]

Ive rigged up a purchase outhaul, which flattens off the lower part of the main well.
I've also used the halyard but the leech is still too closed, so I rigged up a cunningham which helped but still the top two leech tell tails on the main are very hard to stop curling around.
I can loosen the mainsheet a bit which helps things, but then the main won't point very high at all and backs too easily. Maybe this is just a problem of having no traveller and not enough twist and maybe I'm trying too hard.....maybe the main is just a bit stretched. But I thought if I could flatten the main a bit more then it would point a bit higher.
I'm not sure, but I think we sail a bit faster with the main a bit backwinded, but this makes no sense to me.

Yes the leward shroud is a bit loose when loaded up, which worries me.

I don't know if practically significant, but I've read that most metals 'creep' (i.e. permantantly stretch with time even at loads less than elastic limit) more at high temps but even at lower temperatures. Only slightly, but then if we are talking about 20 years then a few cm is possible, especially if the wires 'weave' settles at all. I think I might make another post on this.

There is a roll-genoa, so another thought was that maybe when this was fitted the forestay became too long. I will check the mast rake this weekend, the bottom of the forestay/foil is currntly at the most forward hole at the stem (to try to tension caps more) but I have noticed a bit of leehelm in lighter airs...

Also, there is a bit of localised delam under the foredeck on the roof above the forepeak. I had thought that this wasn't structural as the deck is still solid as a rock, but maybe not... This is on the winters list of repairs -its solid and dry there so hopefully just inject some resin in and hold it together with a strut whilst it cures. I'm not sure on the ETAP 22 how much the foam is for sandwich structure and how much just for floatation.

Of course the shrouds could be too long because of a mix of all three points - stretched wire, forestay too long and maybe some hull distortion, so i think I'll check the rake to check the forestay length, then fix the delamination, and only then meassure the shrouds to get them newly made up - the end fittings are non standard so I'll have to get them made by the ETAP dealer and they are not cheap.

cheers

Leigh

<hr width=100% size=1>