When Andiamo came into our lives, the drop keel was rusty and 17 years later the rust was just that much thicker. In my eternal quest for sailing efficiency, I decided it was time the bit of the drop keel that poked out of the bottom was painted. I bought a chipping hammer and for several days blighted the boat yard with my racket. The resulting surface looked much like black volcanic lava, but the angle grinder smoothed it off a bit. Unknown to me - the black dust was percolating out of the little gaps at the top of the keel case and polluting the saloon. Anyway a coat of primer paint and five coats of black enamel made the drop keel look a lot slicker. Launching day came and the presence of the new slick keel was overshadowed by a brand new mainsail. Did we go any faster? I don't know! We are now back in the boat yard and there is not a trace of the paint on the keel left. It has all been worn away by the keel ups and downs. I don't think I'll bother with this again - does anybody paint their drop keel?

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Hi Neil,

How long did the paint take to come off again, just a season? I have the keel raised up into the saloon by several inches to replace the lifting eye(Just in the nick of time) and was considering painting what i could reach of the top.

This has got me thinking, whether the top of the keel and the eye etc. is actually in the water when the keel is down too. I expect it must be.

Cheers,

Lee

Seal 28

Whiskey Mac

Hi there, Lee

Yes all gone in one season - and, yes, the top of the keel does submerge when fully down in the keel case. I guess you have one of the later 28's because my keel has two cavities in the top of the casting. The eyes of the lifting wires fit in these cavities and are secured by a cross - bolt that also secures the nylon sliders.

To do a worth-while paint job, I expect the drop keel has to come out completely, be given serious cleaning/salt decontamination and be given an epoxy sheath. I don't see that happening! Surprisingly, I have never had any trouble with the keel binding in it's case due to build up of rust. Mud and small stones does hold it occasionally - I have a drying mooring - a few turns of 'up' generally sorts that out.

All the best!

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Hi Neil, thanks for the reply/advice!

We ended up just fitting the eye and refitting the keel. We chipped a good bit of rust off what we could see. It was mostly on the top and decided it had rusted so slowly in the past 40+ years that protecting the keel from corrosion wasn't a concern. Maybe some point down the line we'll get a look at the rest whilst she's in the air.

We sourced a lifting eye locally

They had one with an eye which was too small and a bigger one(which we went with) which looked like it might have a bit bigger eye diameter than the one we removed. It was quite hard to tell as the one we removed was heavily corroded. It seems now like when fully wound up,the keel may be protruding below the stub by a few mm's. We also have a drying mooring here at Dunure, so hopefully by being impatient, we've not given ourselves problems.

Will try for a season and see..it was surprisingly quite an easy job with an A frame and a chain hoist.

Tight sails,

Lee

It's a good move to leave the keel down an inch or two. The constant slight up and down with the tides tends to keep it moving freely. If it does get stuck you can also lift it a little with the winch and hopefully the obstruction will drop out.

I looked for Dunure on my VMH charts - It looks like some local knowledge is needed!

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That makes sense Neil, weight of the boat can exert a lot more force than i can.

Dunure's great, quaint and friendly. My mooring's on the West wall which is a bit exposed to a strong Southerly. So much so that it broke my mooring last week(No damage). Hopefully the stainless steel ring and new rope i installed will stop that happening again so quickly. It could do with a dredge, but only a worry if you're late back on the dropping tide and there's not much water left. The entrance is also quite narrow and has some rocks to the Northern side. If there's not much water you need to enter diagonally from the south.

Lee

Whiskey Mac

I wire brushed the surface of the drop keel and was impressed by how little rust there was, so I have repainted it - but only two coats, this time!

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