Square Meter: Keel Ho !

After a good deal of prep-work, we have bolted and bonded the lead keel to the 1929 square meter class racing sloop.
The new 316 stainless bolts we installed in the lead casting lined up well with the receiving holes on the keel timber.  They just required a little coaxing as we lowered the hull onto the stationary lead.

The boat is suspended in the barn from 4 points.  We were using cable come-alongs which operate with a ratchet handle.  The boat's owner, Bruce, had a chain-fall hoist.  I had never used one.  They are fantastic!  They are small and are easy to use.  They also allow great control over the load.  This helped with the delicate operation of setting the hull onto the bolts.

Once I discovered how useful they were, I replaced all the come-alongs with chain-falls.
After we did a dry run of setting the hull down, we marked and ground out a few obstructions on the lead mating surface.

Once we were all set, 3M 5200 was liberally applied and the process began.  Here are photos...

The lead keel seen here weighs about 2000 pounds.

Chain-falls are awesome!

Off to scrap.

The mating surface is cleaned up and ready to go.

3M 5200 at the ready.

The holes in the keel timber had some wallow, so the hole was backfilled with 5200 and a 316 stainless  fender washer was added to tighten up the clearance to prevent any water intrusion.

Ready to lower.

Captain Bruce is happy about this step.  The wedge is to help with vertical alignment.

That is a load off!