My first post! Just bought Nimrod, a Parker 275 a month ago which is now on the hard at Port Edgar on the Forth.

Today, with the help of the ever helpful Andrew Downie, I removed the keel eye bolt. Came out easily with the use of a t bar tool that Andrew has. Its not that badly corroded but seems sensible to replace it.

What I need to know is the best place to source a replacement. The thread appears to be 14mm and there is only 1 bolt. On Andrews later version there are 2 smaller bolts.

On another thread someone suggests stainless is not a good idea due to being in contact with the keel.

Also some ranges seem to go 12mm 16mm and skip 14mm

It also seems that bpsailboats is no longer in business??

Cheers

Rob

It is best to replace with the correct steel eyebolt. Ken Surplice has a source for the smaller bolts on our 275s - my sail number is 28. Older 275s have only one larger bolt presumably like yours.

You should be able to find from any standard engineering supplier.

http://practicalmaintenance.net/?p=787 

Hope you find a supplier and best of luck with your new yacht. They are great boats.

Tim

Thanks for that. One problem as I mentioned is that if you look here for example

http://wireropeshop.co.u...c60ff9497aed29e0eb529ec3 

There is no 14mm. Also the ratings don't look that high. I wonder where Ken gets his??

http://punchout.buckandh...-Steel/product-is-154634 

The two in my keel are different, one M10 and the other M12.

I have had a shackle fail which resulted in the keel dropping, not something one would want to subject the boat to unnecessarily. This indicated how difficult it is to visually detect crevice corrosion/fatigue in stainless [the photos are on the forum], so I would recommend that if you are in the process of messing around with the keel, and don't know their history, you replace them.

When I took the keel out to blast and re-coat it, I replaced mine. The threaded holes in my keel are quite deep, and there was some increased play around the top of the threads, weighing up the options, I elected to put studding into the holes to nearly full depth, and used Wichard eye-nuts on the top. This gave a respectable safety factor for both M10 and M12 sizes.

There are pros & cons to the different materials one could use, in the end I decided to use 316 stainless for the studding and the eye nuts. I used a little loctite on the studding in the keel, but a lot of sealant around the hole entry and under the eye nut.

If your size is M14, then the normal DIN eyebolt/eyenut break load is more likely to be adequate, the Wichard eyebolts/eyenuts have a higher capacity than the DIN standard.

I now use 8mm Dyneema [D12 type] for the hoist line. Mine has an electric winch in the forepeak. The second eye nut has a wire pennant with an eye for a pin to secure the keel in the up position. The keel lowering indicator line also comes from this pennant.

I have bought a stainless wichard eye nut and some studding.

Will try it with tefgel and see what happens. It is supposed to insulate between the stainless and the iron.

Now i just need to build up to cleaning the winch and replacing the wire and shackles, then refitting should be easy.

I just hope the thread in the iron doesn't corrode but a test with the studding felt fine.

Cheers

Rob

I will report back in a couple of years!!

On my P275/25 both eye bolts are the same size. I was delighted to walk into my local tool store Basingstoke Bolt and Tool  about one minute from my house, and find a box of eye bolts sitting on the shelf for just £2-3 each. They have the load rating stamped on them so the characteristics are clear. If you have a regular tool store near you do give them a try.

Cheers!

Ken