Hi Folks

Although it had been a little harder than usual to raise the keel on our previous outing, but nothing extraordinary, I was surprised when the keel of Sparky (P21 93) wouldn't drop on Sunday. Has anyone had this problem and solved it?

She lies on a deepwater trot mooring and hasn't been grounded. On inspection there was a good deal of flotsam in the keel box. This consisted of finger sized twigs, cob nuts, seaweed etc. Everything I could see was removed and every part of the keel I could see looked normal.

Yesterday I returned to try again and set up a lowering mechanism to bypass the block to allow access (and avoid sudden lowering) and with the help of Peter White (Osiris P21 42) tried to encourage the keel down with a hammer and wood block placed on the top of the keel. The keel very gradually went down by about 2 inches in all, but I've become more anxious about the possibility of the keel being trapped within the hull. We've compared keel positions and the keel looks lower than Peter's boat when his is in the fully raised position.

Options of; underwater inspection, towing to a nearby jetty and pressure washing the inside of the keel box and even bringing her ashore are all possible and under consideration.

Thanks

Andy