Maintaining a dinghy/tender on the chains - keel band repair

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FairweatherDave

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I have got a hard tender for next season for the chains at Emsworth. As the tide comes in all the tenders bounce around on mud/shingle, so its a hard life, and then you drag them accross the hard if the tide is out . I need to repair the grp keel band and paralell bilge runners and want to put on protective sacrificial strips. I plan to go to the scrap metal merchant to see what I can find in the way of strips, and if that seems too pricey use some wood. Given the hard life of a tender in this situation compared to some tenders which are nicely stacked on end in yards which material would you go for, but more importantly would you glue and screw, or just epoxy on the strips? I hope to add transom wheels too but it is the daily grinding I don't like. Two of us can easily carry the tender to the waters edge to launch. Thanks for any answers.
 
Dougal Tolan said:
Wood screwed on. Cheap, readily available, easy to shape and quick to replace.
One thing though, countersink the screw heads as deep as you dare.
Click to expand...
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Ah yes but we are talking Emsworth in Chichester Harbour. The mud is full of flint - you know, the stuff they used to use for axes and arrowheads in the days before GRP? Can be (and often is!) razor sharp even on the foreshore. I have kept dinghies in Chi Harbour for nearly 30 years, and have found the ONLY way to protect them is a steel strip mounted on a wooden runner. If you mount the strip direct to the GRP, the flint gouges out the glass each side of it - sometimes going through within a couple of seasons! The actual metal used is not important: I have used strip metal from B&Q before now. I once used very succesfully an old and worn out bronze genny track. |Even that was looking a bit thin after 5 years use. Regard the metal and wood as sacrificial - something you are going to replace perhaps a couple of times in the life of the dinghy.

Whatever you do, dont drag the dinghy over the hard - any hard in Chi, come to that - without runners at least 15mm deep. Its the death of any GRP dinghy! Even with 20mm runners on my current dinghy, the bottom is getting pretty battle scarred, and it only gets dragged around 5m up the hard to the chains (at Prinstead). If the tide's further out I use a trolley.
 
Thanks Dougal and Oldharry. That's the answers I need. I've used our inflatable for a few years and fancied trying a hard tender and seeing how that goes. Not having to carry it to and from the car and not having to inflate it. For the sake of £50 a year I reckon I will learn a bit even if I hate it. Will be interested to see how comfy it will be for 3 people out to the mooring. It is only 8'6". I know the stability issues will be quite different.
 
Another vote for steel strip over a wooden backing. You used to get galvanised steel 'water bar' at the builder's merchants. It was used to stop rain water blowing in underneath wooden doors. It was also ideal for dinghy bottoms! You could get it 1/8 or 1/4 inch thick and about 1 inch wide - I wonder if its still available? The 1/4 inch thickness on my dinghy is down to 1/16th now.
 
Hi Dave,

I have used a thick plastic strip on my 10 ft. heavy dinghy, the advantages are it slides easily, is cheap and if you bolt through the hull with s/s marine grade fixings they can be undone when it needs replacing, have used all sorts and sizes of dinghies fishing daily from Selsey with steel, galvanised steel, stainless steel and they have all gone over to plastic and these boats can go up and down the beach anything up 150 ish times a year, the plastic is easy to work with but use a good sealant as well.

pm me if you wish I can put you in touch with the chap who supplied me.
 
Thanks Moby2, that's interesting. There is a plastics supplier in Portslade I can try but I am PMing you too. Still take oldharry's point of raising the runners high enough so the bulk of the hull clears those flints.
 
Hi Dave,

yes oldharry is absolutely right, think the strip I used is about 12 mm but you could back it with timber then put the plastic onto that... If commercial fisherman are using it, it cant be too bad.
 
A plague of issues and unresolved screw-or-glue questions come to mind when I think about keel-bands...

http://www.ybw.com/forums/showthrea...ive-to-replace-a-keel-band&highlight=keelband

...in spite of many long, thoroughly satisfactory days afloat late this last season, I've come ashore each time to find several gallons of water in my forward compartment...and I discovered it's leaking in through my keel-band screw-holes. The rate at which the water trickles out along the keel-band once the boat is ashore, is alarming!

But I guess it would have to be a severe leak to trouble a tender which is used for short periods, particularly if it floats with the floor above the waterline, self-draining. All the same I'd try to make sure the screw-holes only bore into solid material.
 
Morning all,

I drilled mine with 10" gap/spacings ... could have done with 6" really use a good quality stainless fixings and sealant inside and out, and stainless washers on the inside, recess the head of the machine screw/bolt into the plastic and cover the head with sealant...I know it will eventually wear down buy by the time it gets to that point you should be looking at replacing.

Hope that helps... not saying its gospel but works for me and others.
 
dancrane said:
A plague of issues and unresolved screw-or-glue questions come to mind when I think about keel-bands...

http://www.ybw.com/forums/showthrea...ive-to-replace-a-keel-band&highlight=keelband

...in spite of many long, thoroughly satisfactory days afloat late this last season, I've come ashore each time to find several gallons of water in my forward compartment...and I discovered it's leaking in through my keel-band screw-holes. The rate at which the water trickles out along the keel-band once the boat is ashore, is alarming!

But I guess it would have to be a severe leak to trouble a tender which is used for short periods, particularly if it floats with the floor above the waterline, self-draining. All the same I'd try to make sure the screw-holes only bore into solid material.
Click to expand...

That's been my experience with past tenders - in Chichester Harbour; despite all my attempts to seal the screws securing the strips, the dragging around dislodged them just enough to cause irritating minor leaks.

When I bought a shiny new grp tender a while ago I degreased the moulded keel & bilge strips and araldited on 6' strips of stainless approximately 15mm wide X 2mm thick, they do the job nicely.

Of course one has to make a neat job of it with the ends of the strips chamfered so as not to dig in when the dinghy is dragged bow or stern first.
 
Hi,

The other thing you could do with a metal keel band is get lugs welded on every foot or so if there is already a bit of a keel and bolt through horizontally...no screw heads or to get dragged about, did it years ago with a galvanise keel band before we went over to plastic.
 
I fitted a substantial strip of hardwood on the centre keel and the side runners, about 1" square from memory, through bolted with countersunk heads and washers and nuts on the inside. Then screwed a semicircular brass rubbing strip on, going up the stem and up the transom a little. Has worked for 10 yrs now dragging it up a shingly beach - but is now due for renewal - but the brass strip is expensive - perhaps stainless?
 
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