Southerly keel stuck

[neil_s]

Well done! It's amazing the enormous weight that can be supported by a bit of old paint and mud. Lift keel boating is a whole extra experience. My boat has a lifting rudder blade, too!

 

[rgarside]

I have a Southerly 46RS, which has a similar lifting keel arrangement.
The Hydraulics lift the keel, and gravity lowers it.
Lowering is governed by a relief valve (this may not be the correct technical term) the relief valve is adjustable, if you open the relief valve the keel will fall faster.
The hydraulic power pack Southerly fitted is a bought in module, the the pump is incorporated into the hydraulic reservoir, along with the valve pack.
You should be able to find the adjustable relief valve on the valve pack, it's usually some form of knurled knob with a locking nut on the same thread. Try adjusting the valve, I think turning the value anticlockwise should make the keel drop faster.
If you raise the keel and experiment with the valve you should be able to increase the moment the keel has in a controllable way, which may dislodge whatever is holding the keel up.
BUT - beware you may just drive what ever is holding the keel and wedging it even tighter.

Have you tried poking a thin batten or metal strip up between the keel and the keel box?
If both sides are clear, then it has to be the pivot pin, and to access that you need to drop the grounding plate.
You can't access the pin from inside the boat.
I had to do that, and the area around the Stainless Steel pin was covered in rust, and the pin was very difficult to remove. You need to take the weight off the pin, supporting the end of the keel won't work. You need to get a jack, of similar directly under the pin.
We finished up using a drift and a very big hammer.
Getting the pin back in, also difficult, you really need to line the holes up very carefully, which isn't easy given the weight of the lift keel, 2.5 tons in my case.

I have a similar hydraulic power pack for my keel hoist. The adjustable relief valve is on the outlet of the pump, so serves to limit the pressure applied when lifting the keel. The rate at which the keel lowers is controlled by a separate flow rate-limiting valve in the return line downstream of the solenoid lowering valve. These can be changed for ones with a different rate, but I don't think they can be adjusted. They are all mounted in the manifold block that the motor, pump and fluid reservoir are attached to.

 

[pandos]

Well done, sorry my post was a bit late to be of any use.

Your post is interesting and on point as it turns out. It is years of rust and antifouling with the keel not deployed fully...

Possibly a multi tool or a sabre saw will free things out once the boat has been shifted in it's cradle.

The speed and power of the drop even with a 100mm freefall was incredible, sounds stupid to think a ton of steel would not drop quickly but it was quiet amusing and proper satisfyingly work for a bank holiday...

What I noticed on this 100 is that the ram acts via pulleys that are sat on top of the keel case. When the keel sticks the ram tries to pull the case down and rearwards. Potentially this could tear the forward end of the keel box...a simple brace from the base of the ram to the pulley would solve this...but a potential weak point as it is..