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Minnie - Wing Keel Conversion
Page 3
We used the two overhead cranes to move the boat into just the right position. To make sure that we had the keel holes in the correct places, we now lowered the boat onto the keel. I got into the boat so that I could look down through the keel bolt holes and "line things up" This worked really well as Mike could use the cranes or simply push a little on the outside of the boat to get things just right.
We used the keel bolt furthest aft as the guide. Once this bolt was in its hole, the front of the boat was lowered a bit more and all of the holes had bolts in them. No dunking, cracking, or breaking. Everything was just perfect. Mike, using the cranes, now lifted the boat straight up off of the new keel.
The bedding compound that Catalina had sent was next. This was 3/4 gallon of a toothpaste like fiberglass and resin mixture that needed to have hardener mixed in. Mike had made a steel paddle that he could attach to a 1/2" impact wrench that made stirring the mixture possible. I'm not sure what you would do to stir by hand. The stuff is awfully thick, and you only have about a half an hour to mix and apply the mixture. We used plastic spatulas to spread the mixture on the upper surface of the flange on the keel and all over the part of the keel that would fit into the keel trunk.
I got back into the boat and again guided the lowering of the boat back onto the keel bolts. We again used the aft bolt as the primary guide. When the boat had been lowered down to the flange. I put the backing washers, lock washers, and nuts onto the keel bolts and tightened them down tight. The excess bedding compound "squooked" out at the flange to boat joint and we cleaned this excess up with the plastic spatulas.
All of this took about 5 1/2 hours of actual doing. We ate lunch and had a couple cups of coffee too, so spent about 7 hours getting this far, and we left the boat to let the bedding compound harden overnight.
The next morning, the bedding compound had hardened about 60 or 70% so we decided to leave things alone. But we did have a couple of jobs that could be done while we waited. The bunks and bow support on the trailer needed to be adjusted to fit the greater draft of the wing keel (the boat was still being supported by its slings and the overhead cranes). When the bunks and bow stand were adjusted, we lowered the slings enough to take them off and the boat sat perfectly on the trailer.
Due to the cool weather, the bedding compound had not hardened completely. We decided to allow it to finish hardening and made plans to fair the joint between the flange and the bottom of the boat on the next Saturday.
There were a couple jobs that needed attention that morning. We adjusted the bunks on the trailer to fit the taller configuration of the wing keel, as well as adjusting the launching guides at the back of the trailer. The bow winch stand also needed to be moved to fit. All of these jobs were completed in an hour or so. Mike took the boat home on the trailer. The following Saturday morning I met Mike at his house and we decided to try fiberglassing the joint between the hull and the new keel. The lip was about 1/4 inch tall, so we cut some fiberglass into inch wide strips and attached it with resin to make a fill. Next we used 4 inch wide fiberglass to bridge the area from the hull to the keel. Unfortunately, gravity began to come into play and the whole "mess" (and it turned into a real mess) began falling and pealing off the bottom. It was just impossible to get everything to stick, and we made the decision to clean up what was left and simply fair the flange itself by grinding. Mike did this during the next week and then epoxy sealed the whole hull to flange area.
Continue to Page 4