After several seasons of Ostrich style maintenance of my keel (it's worked perfectly so I haven't touched it!) I have finally craned out the keel for a spot of winter TLC.
I dont intend on lifting the keel out for the next few seasons, so what preventative maintenance / replacement would everyone suggest?
It's a manual lift. The 2 lifting eyes appear quite rusty. I have bought replacement 6:1 blocks for the 12mm dyneema lifting rope. The wire strop used on the aft eye to lock the keel up appears fine but I will replace it anyway. What lube is best?
The previous owner used Gelshield or similar which has chipped away in a few places. I would like to restore it to a really smooth finish. He didn't antifoul the keel at all but I was thinking of using a hard antifouling so that I don't have to winch it up if I'm not drying out.
Many thanks for any and all help,
Paul
Parker 275S no. 54
"Sunflower Blue"
Anstruther

Paul.

Rob here up the river with Nimrod at Port Edgar.

I will be interested to hear what you do as I think I will do mine next winter. I have kept a lid on the rust by angle grinding. Rust stuff and then lots of primocon. But its a bit rough.

I have emailed Andrew who has just sold Vela actually to post on here what he did to his when he had it out a couple of years ago.

Where are you doing the work? Is the keel next to the boat or in your garage?!

Cheers

Rob

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In 2009 the keel on my 275 was quite far gone. I got it blasted and primed, and then used KBS Rustseal on it before fairing it with epoxy filler and giving it final coats of Rustseal. The cast iron was quite pitted so there was little chance of smoothing it off before priming and consequently the primer had a lot of holidays. Hence the KBS phosphate treatment seemed a good idea. The paint has held up well since then. On the lower 600mm of the keel I put Coppercoat anti fouling. The areas that suffer are the keel tip when I am careless and do some ploughing, and the leading edge immediately below the keel roller over the 200mm below the roller when the keel is fully down - this is due to the extreme pressure of the roller on the leading edge over the last part of the keel travel, the rest below that is usually ok.

I made a trolley to hold the keel while I worked on it.

There is a "before" photo, and a photo after painting but before fairing and Coppercoat at the link below
https://www.dropbox.com/...6YfPO9ovYeWWEwGIiPa?dl=0 

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Hi Rob - hope all well with you. Do you know if Vela is staying on the Forth?
I think I must be quite fortunate as I have no signs of rust at all other than the lifting bolts. The keel is lying on the hard at Anstruther. I don't think that I could shift anywhere else with out the assistance of the entire Anstruther female skiff rowers to help - and they are strong!

Dick - thanks very much for all the tips and the photos. I think that I will use your Coppercoat idea on the bottom part of the keel.

Paul

Vela has been bought by 3 other guys at Port Edgar which is good.

My keel only has one lifting bolt which is a bit worrying.

I assume they craned it out after they had lifted the boat?

Was it easy?

Cheers

Rob

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Thats great news that Vela is staying put. I guess that they will be in spinny class for ECSW 2017? I will need to beast my boys a fair bit if I am to do the same!
It was way easier to get the keel out than i thought using the same huge crane that craned the boat out. It swings fwd a bit when it emerges out of the hull but nothing that can't be managed with some guide ropes.

I imagine so. We should coordinate ecsw. Nearer the time i will find out who is going from peyc in our class.

Anyone reading this from further afield...... I think the date is going to be changed to the 2-3 September.

Anyway its at Granton. I wonder where the next nearest Parker 275s are?!

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Paul. Did you get your keel done and back in the water. Progress. Tips etc!!

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So Sunflower Blue is back in the water at Anstruther, newly Coppercoated Keel in place. I replaced the 2 eyebolts as they were quite corroded. The keel itself had a few spots of metal exposed which I wirebrushed to shiny metal and sealed with epoxy. I thought I 'd give coppercoat a go as a trial, as I hope not to take the keel out for another few seasons - I will report back with end of season results.

The nylon sliders were all fine so I just gave them a quick clean. I cant decide whether to apply grease or not. I'm leaning towards letting the relatively low friction of the sliders do the job.

I ran out of time to replace the bottom roller. It still turns fine but does have a flat spot.

Looking forward to 3 x 275s at Granton later in the year.