mclark
Well-Known Member
For about 10 years now I have been panicking about the prospect of replacing the keel band on White Heather. I got a quote from the local shipyard - £1900!!.
The key section of it fell off late last season, the heel section that takes all the umph when she is taking the ground.
Anyway, last weekend I found myself with no option but to do it myself. I got her on the drying grid in Ramsey and with a borrowed 25 ton hydraulic jack and loads of bits of wood and girder etc to chock the jack and spread the load on the bottom of the boat respectively AND with a very dry mouth I set to.
Because she was leaning on the wall the biggest potential problem was the keel sliding away from the quay as the weight came off the bottom so to prevent this I bolted a piece of greenheart to the wooden pads on top the grid as a stop.
The shipyard had made the band from 10mm x 100mm steel strip (beefed up to 12 mm at the heel), the 37 feet of it in 4 pieces, subsequently to be welded together in situ.
Amazingly and very unusually the whole job went like clockwork and I put all 4 bits on in a tide! and the total cost well under £200.
I am a very smug and satisfied chap now. How often does a job intimidate and one puts it off and off and off and when you are forced to tackle it finally, its so often much less a problem then one had thought.
Mike
The key section of it fell off late last season, the heel section that takes all the umph when she is taking the ground.
Anyway, last weekend I found myself with no option but to do it myself. I got her on the drying grid in Ramsey and with a borrowed 25 ton hydraulic jack and loads of bits of wood and girder etc to chock the jack and spread the load on the bottom of the boat respectively AND with a very dry mouth I set to.
Because she was leaning on the wall the biggest potential problem was the keel sliding away from the quay as the weight came off the bottom so to prevent this I bolted a piece of greenheart to the wooden pads on top the grid as a stop.
The shipyard had made the band from 10mm x 100mm steel strip (beefed up to 12 mm at the heel), the 37 feet of it in 4 pieces, subsequently to be welded together in situ.
Amazingly and very unusually the whole job went like clockwork and I put all 4 bits on in a tide! and the total cost well under £200.
I am a very smug and satisfied chap now. How often does a job intimidate and one puts it off and off and off and when you are forced to tackle it finally, its so often much less a problem then one had thought.
Mike
