Lifting Keel position indicator

[Amp1ng]

Hi all,

I have an Anderson 26 with vertical lifting Keel. The keel plate is lifted via cable which winds onto a Dutton Lainson winch. The keel is fully encased apart for the entrance/exit of the cable therefore you can only tell the position of the keel in the fully up or down position! I would like to install a system so as to be able to detect keel height/current draft and display it in the cockpit.

Any ideas?

 

[PaulR]

friends have a vertical lift keel boat which has a thin wire strop from its top running to length of elastic on front of mast - on strop is a ribbon - as keel raised elastic pulls strop up and ribbon height shows keel height - on our centreboard boat the lift wire ran to a winch in the cockpit and a marker on the wire showed how far up it was

 

[chasroberts]

Is there any way of marking the lifting cable 'a la anchor chain' method using paint or something similar to mark how much cable you've pulled and ergo where the keel is. Appreciate it would need redoing periodically but could be a cheap and easy fix to your problem?

Chas

 

[Amp1ng]

Thanks for the suggestion, originaly I dismissed this idea because I thought that anything on the wire would get instantly mashed on the winch drum the moment I wound it up, however thinking about this in little more detail I doubt that this would happen because that part of the wire probably doesn't end up on the drum and only has to withstand a little chewing when it goes 90 degrees around a pully. I will have another look when I'm next at the boat. Perhaps some heat shrink may survive long enough!