Episode 8 That Blasted Keel

Getting the keel out of the keelbox gave me my first good look at it, or at least, the side it wasn't lying on. 

The most obvious of the keel's attributes, once I could see it, was that it was heavy. Very heavy. Flipping it over from one side to the side was impossible. Getting it clear of boat required me to crab it out sideways with a lever, inch by inch, while shuffling the scrap timber underneath to prevent the keel from gouging our shiny new car port floor slab. Lifting it onto a trailer, or into the back of the car was out of the question.

Austral 20 210 kg keel after removal from keel box

Austral 20 210 kg keel after removal from keel box

Austral 20 210 kg keel; sketch of major dimensions

I had thought that my Austral 20 was a Mark 1 with a 150 kg (331 lbs) keel. However, I estimated its weight from its dimensions and density (steel weights about 7900 kg per cubic metre) and found that it was nearer 210 kg (463 lbs).  Given that the Mark 1 keel is lighter with some lead ballast around the keel box (I couldn't find any lead), and the Mark 3 has a pop-top (unlike mine) the process of elimination indicates that it is, indeed, a Mark 2. However, I would not be completely surprised if it conformed with the usual quirks of boat-building and belonged in an entirely different taxonomy altogether.

I don't know how you visualise weights, but my keel weighs about as much as three men, 31 Tour De France bicycles, or two twenty-sevenths of a Blue Whale Tongue. Not that I suggest you make a keel out of any of these materials. I'm just tying to help you understand how heavy it is.

The earlier signs had forewarned me about about the rust on the keel, but the bronze bush was a new discovery. The bronze bush is supposed to be fixed to the keel, and allows the keel to pivot on the keel pin. My bush had got itself fixed to the keel pin and had detached itself from the keel such that it now sat loosely in a rusty circular hole that would get enlarged every time the keel was winched up or down by the abrasion between the bush and the keel.

The keel would have to be sand-blasted and recoated. To ensure good protection against further rusting, the undercoat must be applied directly after the sand-blasting before the bare metal has had time to form a microscopically thin layer of rust from the moisture in the atmosphere. These processes were beyond me, so I commissioned G T Mac Industries in Hemmant to sand-blast and coat it. For another unit of that universal currency that comes in packs of six, they agreed to pick up the keel from my home with a loader crane, which was essential because I couldn't even lift one end off the ground, let alone load it into the back of my car. When I visited G T Mac's workshop at Barku Court, I realised that the stuff they usually deal with is so big, my keel could have easily got lost in a pile of scrap metal off-cuts. Knowing this helped me forgive them for calling it a rudder by mistake.

After the sand-blasting and undercoat, the extent of the rusting in my keel could easily be seen from the pitting left behind (see photos below). The rusty hole around the bush, in particular, got cleaned out to a large, irregular opening.

Finally, I decided to replace the rusty mild steel keel pin with a new shiny stainless steel bolt, which was not as easy as I first thought.

My Austral 20, as I was beginning to find out, had been manufactured to imperial dimensions, or pounds, feet and inches to the lay person. We Brits call these dimensions "Imperial", but the Americans, I have noticed, refer to them as "English standard", probably because of their aversion to the British Empire and King George the Third, whom, I should remind them, is no longer in charge.

Modern stainless steel bolts, however, are usually manufactured to metric dimensions, which made the finding of an exact replacement of my old 3/4" steel bolt doubly difficult. Finding a single bolt of that size was hard enough, because it is far beyond the usual range of most retailers. But, BoltBiz in Hemmant (07 3390 4990) had the goods. I hope one day BoltBiz gets a website that I can link to, but it is one of those old-fashioned hardware stores in which the sales assistants actually know where their stock is located on the shelves, and they won't try to sell you a packet of twenty because that's the smallest packet that will carry a bar code. I like these places, but fear for their continued survival in the race to the bottom that we have come to accept as the world of retail.

I found another curious thing about buying a single bolt. I called one shop on the other side of town and was told that a single bolt would cost me $620. Just before I fell off my chair in amazement, I was told that I would get a 95% discount, bringing the cost down to a more reasonable $31. It was because of some arcane policy to do with list prices and actual point-of-sale prices, but it sounded like a tax-dodge to me. If you have a sensible explanation, I'd like to hear it.

Anyway, the reasonably-priced replacement bolt was a metric M20 bolt with a 20mm diameter. That was close to the 3/4" bolt it was replacing, but 3/4" translates to 19.1mm, and the increase in diameter in the size of the bolt meant that the hole in the bush needed to be reamed (enlarged). So, not only did I need to re-attach the bush to the keel with everything properly squared up (else the keel would be skew to the keel box and jam), I needed to ream the hole in the bush. These processes, again, were beyond me, but G T Mac introduced me to Rogers and Lough Marine Engineers (RL), around the corner, who could do all the machining for a modest fee. Importantly, I didn't need to transport the keel from one place to another, as G T Mac and RL would work it out between themselves.

The end result cost about 10 units of universal currency, but I finally had a rust-free, coated keel with the bronze bush fixed in the right position, with the right sized hole to accept my new M20 stainless steel keel-pin bolt. Maybe later I'll fill the holes and fair the keel to streamline it, but for now, I'll be content to get it back into the boat to check that everything still works by winding the keel up and down, up and down, just because I can.

Austral 20 keel after sand blasting and priming with undercoat, showing pitting where the keel had rusted.

Austral 20 keel after replacement of bronze bush and application of top coat

Austral 20 keel after replacement of bronze bush and application of top coat, showing pitting where the keel had rusted.