Practical Boat Owner - January 2016

PRACTICAL

MIJsselmeer in the Netherlands. The boat, the former GBR 458, is a 1971 Børresen mahogany y partner and I, both over 70 now, sail a Dragon as a day-sailer, mainly on the
Dragon with a one-tonne steel keel. A couple of years ago, while she was lifted out of the water for winter storage,
I detected rusty water coming out from the join where the deadwood meets the keel. This concerned me, because rust
means loss of material and thus loss of strength of the bolts. her dry out in the shed for some I decided to take her home and let
months before taking action. The boatyard had screwed the bolts in the top of the keel before mounting the keel on the deadwood, so the
only way to remove the keel was to remove the nuts from the bolts in the bilge of the boat. Three months after lifting her out I started the
dismantling process by lifting the boat off the trailer with two slings mounted on a self-made H-frame, which in turn hung on a three-ton
hoist. I constructed a platform from 3cm-thick planks and fitted it with

Steven Schenk dismantles and refits the keel of his 1971 Børresen
mahogany Dragon day-sailer

Dragon’s
denouement

six heavy-duty swivelling rollers. On the platform, an upright frame was constructed to keep the keel upright.

was placed under the keel. The day before I had sprayed the nuts with WD-40, so they came off easily. With the boat lifted, the platform

Then I raised the boat by a few centimetres, but nothing happened; the keel stayed firmly in place. Next I tried hammering the bolts with a

sledgehammer, but again, the keel wouldn’t even budge by so much as a millimetre.

Drilling beginsThe only way to separate the keel from the boat was to drill the bolts out of the oak deadwood. A

construction workshop in a nearby town made me a hollow drill, 40cm long, made of steel, with a bore slightly larger than the diameter

of the bolts. Then I purchased a low-revolution electric drill, a Makita DP4001, to do the job. Armed with a bucket of cold water to cool

the drill and an industrial vacuum cleaner, I placed myself in the bilge and started drilling. After every centimetre of drilling I placed the

drill in the water for cooling off and

together with the keel and bolts. Some bolts were so affected by rust that they were only half of their original diameter, so it was about

time they were replaced. The keel was lifted onto a trailer and carried to the construction workshop. On both sides of the keel I had the

exact length of each bolt written with a marker pen to prevent mistakes when fitting the new bolts. The old bolts were sawn off and the

parts of the bolts inside the keel were drilled out and a new screw thread was tapped in. The surface of the top of the keel was then

ground and the metal primed. I sandpapered the underside of the deadwood with a 40cm-long manual sander, starting with

The keel gave way and stayed upright on the trolley I tightened the nuts until the sealant came under slight pressure and started to squeeze out a little

A construction workshop made me a hollow drill, 40cm long

removed the sawdust with the vacuum cleaner. A long and boring job, but at least the keel gave way and stayed upright on the trolley.

enough to roll away the trolley Now the hull was lifted high