Got to the club a little after 9am bound and determined to the get the keel attached.
Modified the rear stainless backing plate with several trips back and forth to the shop.
Pulled the keel up to the keel stub using the nuts. Fit was good. Lowered the keel back down to about 3/4".
Dale came by to give me a hand with bow gelcoat repairs, and helped with the keel.
We first levelled the boat using a couple of 4 ft levels:
Good thing we did, because the boat was twisted the cradle.
I went in the boat he removed the nuts and backing plates, and buttered plates with Sikaflex 291, as well as forced some sealant around the studs.
We layed about a 1/4" bead of 5200 aound the entire keel. We used a popcicle stick to make sure the sealant was continuous without any bubbles.
I then went in the boat and slowly tighened each of the keel bolts, bringing the keel up to her final resting place. About half of the 5200 oozed out of the crack. Dale had a 6" scraper and cleaned it up while I was in the boat tightening the bolts.
After I was done tightening the keel bolts, we took some acetone to clean up around the keel joint so fairing would stick later. Looks Great!
We took a look from astern and the keel still looked canted SLIGHTLY to port, even though it was hanging freely. Took a 1/4" rope and strung it between the sheer line and the back edge of the keel and marked it with some tape. When we did the same on the starboard side, it was off about 1". We drove a 2x4 between cradle and keel on the port side to bring the keel to the same measurement.
The 5200 sealant is slow cure: 24 hours to non tacky, and 7 days to cure fully. I will just leave her alone until next weekend for fairing, Interprotecting, and VC17ing.
Cameron was telling me the slow cure 5200 is tenacious: he once dropped the keel on a J44 with a 9,000 lb keel. All the keel bolts were off and they had to use wedges to separate the bond of the 5200.
Milestone achieved!
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