Listers:
I thought I’d share this in case anyone has an interest. On my
42 Custom, I’ve been monitoring a small separation at the front end of the keel
where it mates with the boat. I may have mentioned this previously, but my
boat has two “C&C smiles.” For whatever reason (presumably to use an existing
keel mold) my keel has a modification at the upper front edge: a wedge, or shoe
(or whatever you want to call it) was fitted to fill space between the keel and
the boat at the upper forward edge of the keel. While investigating how the
wedge is secured to the boat, we decided to tighten all the keel bolts.
However, two of the bolts are located under the mast step, which had to be
removed for access. The mast step is a rectangular box made of aluminum that
spans three stringers fore and aft. In removing the mast step, we discovered:
a) support for a head wall was constructed on top of the forward port corner of
the mast step and had to be cut away, strongly indicating that the step has not
been removed in 48 years; b) the weight of the mast on the mast step was being
borne almost entirely by the middle stringer directly underneath the mast (not
the other two stringers fore and aft); and c) the mast step has bent about 3/8”
of an inch fore and aft, strongly indicating that the center stringer under the
mast has compressed by that much over the years. In addition, because the mast
step evidently had not been removed previously, the two keel bolts located
underneath the mast step had not been checked or tightened in 48 years. All
keel bolts have now been checked and tightened, some minor rot of the middle
stringer is under repair, and the mast step is being modified with two holes
for socket extensions so it no longer needs to be removed to tighten the two
keel bolts underneath. We considered replacing the aluminum mast step with
stainless and re-setting it to spread the load more evenly across all three
stringers (presumably the original intent), but the rig appears to be
reasonably happy so we’re just modifying the old mast step as described above,
repairing the middle stringer, and reinstalling.
Matt
C&C 42 Custom
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Stu
