Does anyone have an intimate knowledge of the guides at the bottom of the keel box?

Yesterday I took Mya's keel out for the first time (thanks to the vast body of advice on these pages, completely painless)and shuffled underneath to gauge the scale of the antifouling task ahead of me, whilst sheltering from the sleet. Nice.

I found at the forward end of the box a thin guide profiled to the leading edge of the keel sitting above the floor of the boat inside the box. It might once have been attached but is now loose vertically but captive horizontally. At the trailing edge there was no guide but a space about 2 cm deep occupied by a family of mussels imported from North Wales and somehow surviving life in Chichester Harbour. Until the arrival of my scraper that is.

So two questions for the learned members:
1. Should there be a guide at the back of the keel as well as the front?
2. Are either of them remotely important? And if so, how would they have been fixed/could they be now?

Any advice very gratefully received

Thanks

Peter

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Peter,
There may be a description of this in the manual but I don't have it to hand. So what's said below may not be relevant.
There are nylon 'guides' embedded in the hull both fore and aft of the keel on the later Superseals but I don't know if this was the case for the early Baker built ones. Mine is Parker built no 103.
The nylon solid pieces are embedded in special indentations and bolted through into the fore and aft 'lips' of the keel casing. I took mine out about 20 years ago thinking they needed to be replaced (as they were wearing quite a bit) by removing the bolts ... the nuts are inside the 'lips' and difficult to get at.
Bill Parker sent me two new roughly shaped pieces of nylon ca. 20mm thick. I didn't really need to replace them.
[img=http://1drv.ms/1EtXdoG]SupersealKeelGuides[/img]

SupersealKeelguides 

One of the above links should get you to photos of the guides from a similar boat. If you can't access them mail me and I will send them. I can't see a way of putting the photos directly into this mail.
You should be able to see the edges of the nylon shape and the countersunk bolt heads through the antifoul ... notice that the aft one shows the keel has worn back between the bolts and is therefore also wearing through the inner fibreglass too.
Quite common I would expect and not a serious problem. Mine is worse.

Maybe there is an early Baker built owner who can confirm (or otherwise!) this.

Hope this helps.

Chris Turner (Elsa. SS #103)

Thanks Chris. Interesting photos - it looks like a slightly different setup from mine (Baker built). I have a keel-shaped cutout in the bottom of the boat with the keel box on top so there is as you describe a 'lip' all the way around, narrow at the sides but quite substantial at the ends. My guide sits on top of this lip at the forward end, and unlike these photos didn't seem to be visible from the outside at all, although bolting through must be the only secure way of fixing it.

I'll see if anyone with a Baker boat can clarify, and then poke around with a screwdriver next week. And then perhaps forget about it as there was no sign of wear so far. The keel seems quite tight when fully down (indeed it took a nudge on East Head to free it on one occasion) but does bang about a bit when half up in waves.

Thanks again

Peter

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In case anyone else still wants to see these keel guide photos I am attempting to add them directly.... so I can remove them from my 'cloud'storage to which the previous link directs.
Chris.

Just in case I accidentally confuse some future Baker-built owner - I did have a poke around with a screwdriver and found that my guide is indeed bolted through with countersunk machine screws hidden under the antifouling, but is on top of the GRP shell not through or around it like Chris'. Having dislodged it and re-tightened it, Sod's Law predicts with absolute certainty that the first time I drop the keel this year it will jam, but I won't trouble the forum with details when it happens.

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The aft [trailing edge] guide on the P275 looks just the same. I replaced mine a couple of years ago, as the existing one seemed to have been damaged. Getting the machine screws out was difficult - the nuts glassed in above the "lip" ended up rotating in the the fibreglass they were embedded in. I ended up cutting the guide out from around them with a dremel tool, and then cutting off the machine screw heads and punching the remainder of the screw and nut out. I cleaned up the top surface of the lip, then made a "C" shape piece of 5mm stainless that fitted around the trailing edge of the keel and tapped holes for replacement machine screws into it. This was epoxied in place above the "lip". A piece of 20mm thick acetal/delrin was cut to fit the recess, and to be a close fit to the trailing edge of the keel - a tricky piece of 3D geometry - but with many templates, and much use of a profile gauge, it came out alright.

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In reading the thread I picked up on thee reference to a "maunal". I have an older Baker built 26 and wonder whether there was a manual for these. I would be grateful if some-one could scan a copy to the website if there is one.
Regards
David

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No need to scan David.The manual is listed with Regalia under the 'About the PSSA' menu.£10 + postage.Includes the Baker built.Excellent value -particularly for the builders and members queries and comments.