Dagger board opening size problem

[Quinn McCarthy]

Over the weekend I went to lift the keel out of our new boat for the first time. We need to fair the bottom, repaint and repair a ding. After the last race last year part of the laurentian shield reached up and grabbed onto the bottom of the boat. Doing a little damage.What seemed like it was a simple process turned into a major PITA. ON the old boat #113 the board fit through the opening no problem. The top of the keel wasn't even close to coming out. The first thing I tried was 2 blue bars to guide the ridge open as the keel went up. There was no give there at all. I had to use a sawz-all to cut the glides off the starboard side. It almost looks like the keel is set in before the top half is glued on. It looks like the only way to get that back in is to grind that lip off. Is that going to be a structural problem if I gringd the over hang?

Thanks,

Quinn

[dave]

No, it's just a fiberglass lip. That, the mast step, the CB as a whole and the rudder head are IMHO the main design/engineering [cuss word] /and building flaws in the boat. If you notice, the sides of the upper CB trunk angle IN, which means that they will flex and let the head of the CB go through on initial installation. I honestly don't think that the builders anticipated or cared much about post build CB removal!!!!

No boat's perfect. The 7.9 is far and away so much better overall than most out there that these nagging problems should be taken in stride as the cost of buying anything that's thought of, designed/engineered and built by humanity!

[Quinn McCarthy]

Well then it is off to the grinder.

Thanks

Quinn

[Tom Elsen]

Whoooaaaa. Hold on.
All you need is a few cheap putty knives. I've used 4" blades. Two or three on each side. One smaller both fore and aft.
Use the putty knives as jammers / slides between the delrin guides (on the top of the daggerboard) and the lip of the board box.
Get the board up to within a couple of inches of the top. Jam the putty knives into place. Ease the board up very slowly. You may need to push a couple of spots on the lip outward as the guides go the last mm or so. No problem. Have done this on several boats. It takes an extra couple of minutes and a tiny bit of care, but no problem.

[dave]

Tom's correct, this can be done and I've done it........................... once, that's when I got out the grinder! As with many thing in "engineering" there may have been a good reason in the mind of the designers or it may have just been a building flaw, but it's a total PITA to deal with this type of issue when the answer to the problem is so simple and staring us right in the face!

[Quinn McCarthy]

I will give it a whirl. I have nothing to loose. Fore and aft had plenty room. Beats grinding it off.

I will keep you posted.

Thanks for the help.

Quinn

[Tom Elsen]

Hi Dave
I agree that the solution is a bit of a PITA. Minor IMHO, but that's in the eye of the beholder I guess.
I'm not sure if this was a design feature or just part of the manufacturing process.

What I'd really like to encourage people to do is to post their questions, problems, issues etc. on this board. Do it before you pick up a sander, grinder, hacksaw, sawsall or even a hammer.

WTH there's just plenty of experience here. And there are plenty of people (like you) willing to share their expertise.

One minute to post a question or a problem can save you a WHOLE BUNCH of re-work, not to mention a potentially expensive refit if the original 'fix' is the wrong one.

Edit: Forgot - The "Search" function is a nice tool as well. Suggest using it before any power tools.

[Stef]

I have plucked the board out at least 4 times. I use the "putty knife" method. It's a tight fit and while raising it's easy to loose one of those plastic shims attached to the top of the board. Takes a few seconds.

I couldn't agree more with Tom, this site has saved my hours upon hours of needless work.

[dave]

Tom, I agree with you for the most part, but I won't do that kind of stuff (putty knives, etc) for long. There is a big gap between the bottom edges of the offending flanges and the actual CB trunk wall. That could be cut higher instead of ground outboard, and since these flanges angle outboard as the rise, that would make the slot wider.

There is always more than one way to address a problem. I choose the simplest, surest way that I can think of and then do it right so that I only have to do it once and never again. In a nutshell, that and the unappealing prospect of putting together and training a new crew are why my boat is still in the backyard under a cover!!!! Facing the aforementioned principal ( once and RIGHT) on the mast step, the bottom, the traveler, assorted rotten areas, recoating the mast and boom, refinishing the rough interior where the carpet was removed and also having to redo 100% of the laminate that fell off/peeled off of the CB, REALLY takes the wind out of my sails!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have a 98 Nissan Frontier PU that's the best vehicle I've ever owned, BUT, the genius engineers who designed the engine put a riding mower sized oil filter on it and then stuck that up in a hole on the under side of the block and then mounted all on the back side of a skid pan that must be removed to get to it!!!!!!! That kind of idiotic engineering drives me crazy, so I installed a remote oil filter location that is mounted in the right wheel well and has TWO one quart filters to boot! Now my oil changes are a piece of cake AND my oil capacity went up by 33% plus the filters both have continual air flow coming from a duct in the front bumper/air dam. Problem solved and WAY better than stock.

The same logic applies to boats. A little cutting and a little itching and one will never again have to deal with putty knives, wedges, dropping stuff down in the CB trunk, etc. Oh yeah, it's make getting the board out really fast too!